


Sciamachy

by Only_1_Truth



Category: Hannibal (TV), James Bond (Craig movies), Kingsman (Movies), Person of Interest (TV), Sherlock (TV), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), The Punisher (TV 2017), Torchwood
Genre: 00Q Festival 2017, Ableist Language, Background Relationships, Basically half of the characters are killers, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Explicit Consent, Hurt/Comfort, In which a computer system decides who is a criminal and who is not, Jailbreaks never go well for the jailers, M/M, Multi, My criminal babies, Or the Quartermasters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Relationship, Psychopass!AU, Q is a Holmes, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Tanner is a gossip, That's what this fic is really about, Threats, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, because this includes the Hannibal fandom, dark!Bond, mentions of cannibalism, prison break - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-03 19:57:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 186,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11539368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: One of the definitions of 'sciamachy' is to fight with shadows... and Q is about to go to the place where shadows are housed and used by the government.In today's world, the Sybil System is everyone's conscience: by looking at data (everything from Facebook posts to security cameras) this AI can determine what people are criminals before they can do wrong.  Some criminals, though, are dangerous enough to outrun her for a time - those criminals, when caught, are put to use instead of put down. After all, what better way to hunt down monsters than with the better monsters?Enter Q.  He's not dangerous - at least to the common eye - and he's perfect for the job of Quartermaster for all of these 'better monsters.'  But he's got an agenda, and he's not the only one...Or: the dark!AU crossover fic that nobody asked for, in which the Sybil System has labeled everyone 'good' and 'bad,' and you don't know if you can trust anyone.  And it might be the so-called 'good' ones that you have to watch the most...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note: I'm putting the relationship tags in early, just so everyone knows what's coming. Note that this *is* a slow-build/slow-burn fic, however, so even if you don't see your ships appearing immediately, know that the wait will pay off ;) 
> 
> Want to see casting pics for all of the characters and agents? See my Wordpress [here](https://only1truthfanfiction.wordpress.com/casting-pics/casting-pics-for-sciamachy/)
> 
> So, without further adieu, here is my 'Crossover Day' contribution for the 2017 00Q Festival - let the games begin...

2050, London.  The Sybil System had been online for one year, long enough for it to be approved as the best public safety mechanism ever created.  It was designed to tap into all surveillance systems in Britain, and utilize that data to determine the likelihood of any individual becoming a serious threat to society - the term ‘Psychopass’ had already become mainstream.  Those with a Psychopass above 100 were located and arrested without the need for a warrant.  Sybil provided whatever warrant they needed.  Crime went down by nearly 80% within the first week of her installation, law enforcement working overtime to clean the streets of every monster she found.    

It was soon realized, however, that the act of hunting down criminals tended to raise one’s own Psychopass.  To catch a monster, one tended to become one - only predators could hunt other predators without being picked off one by one. This realization had led, in the past six months, to a change in policy: the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division was not only created, but they were given leave to retain some of the recently arrested high-Pass individuals.  These were dangerous criminals, often those proven beyond a doubt to be lethal - but also smart, capable, and able to be controlled with the help of an explosive collar around the neck.  They did the dirty work that still needed doing in a post-Sybil world, allowing their Handlers to keep their hands clean and their Psychopasses low.  The populace nicknamed them ‘Hounds,’ but the Public Safety Bureau just referred to them by numbers, and kept them secluded on the manmade island of Eigengrau off Britain’s western coast, to ensure no accidental mixing with the nice, low-Pass members of society.   

By 2050, God was the Sybil System, and the Public Safety Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division employed the closest thing that could be found to avenging angels, with dangerously leashed Hellhounds to boot.  That was all well and good, of course, with Sybil watching over everyone through a million electronic eyes, making a utopia for her flock.  But there were as many gods in the machine as there were cracks, and Sybil was young yet…    

~^~

The US apparently had a similar system to Sybil, called quite unimaginatively ‘the Machine,’ but only a handful of people knew how either system worked.  Then again, the closer something came to becoming God, the less people _wanted_ to understand it.  One of those knowledgeable few, however, was right now dying slowly of seasickness as a boat took him to Eigengrau, the sea slashing salty fingers along the prow as he huddled against it and tried to decide whether he wanted to vomit over the side or just throw himself over.  It was tempting to give swimming back to the coast a try, because he wasn’t actually a prisoner here, and this voyage was torture.  

“Not a fan of boats, Mr. Finch?”  One of the other passengers, an employee of Eigengrau named Bill Tanner, maneuvered across the deck over to what would soon be Eigengrau’s newest employee.  It was hard to hear his voice over the waves, but it was still possible to understand him say as he frowned, “You could have taken another type of transportation.  We also run helicopters out to Eigengrau and back.”

Mr. Quinlen Finch dragged a hand down over his face, so seasick that he nearly forgot he had glasses on until his palm mushed the nosepiece down across the bridge of his nose.  Crossing his eyes a little and glowering at what he’d just done, Quinlen cleared his throat and shouted back over the sounds of the boat’s motor and the sea, “I’m worse by air, actually!”

“Really?”  Tanner’s brows beetled, and he gave a harmless blink.  All Quinlen could think was that this unassuming man did not look like the type of person who dealt constantly with Britain’s deadliest men.  Then again, Quinlen wasn’t exactly an intimidating specimen himself, all glasses and limbs and bony angles.  

His stomach gave a lurch and then settled enough for the younger man to grimace and answer resignedly, “It’s either seasickness here or panic-attacks in the air.  Afflictions of the mind are far worse, in my book than-”  He was going to say something poetic about ‘bodily rebellions’ when his stomach mounted just such a rebellion, and the young man had to twist around quickly to vomit over the side.  

Tanner was there, holding him by the collar of his anorak and patting his back helpfully.  “Well, you’ll find a lot of those ‘afflictions of the mind’ where we’re going, I’m afraid,” he said, sounding uncomfortably serious.  

The boat powered onwards, and by the time Quinlen’s stomach had settled, Eigengrau was looming on the overcast horizon like a vast scab upon the sea.  Buildings hunched upwards, four or five stories in places, stretching like a small enclosed city of concrete and steel and reinforced glass.

Quinlen stared, still feeling a bit peaky but less nauseous.  “It’s bigger than I imagined,” he said involuntarily.  

“We’re self-sufficient, so it has to be big,” Tanner shrugged, as if that was self-explanatory.  He did add, however, as they began to slow and veer towards a jutting jetty, “The high-Pass agents also tend to murder one another if housed too close together, so maybe that was factored in, too.”

By the time Tanner finished his last sentence, Quinlen was staring at him instead of the dock, and continued to do so until their boat was drawn in and tied up.  Somehow, Eigengrau and its occupants continued to get more and more unsettling the more he heard about them, and that was on top of all that he’d researched before even coming here.  Quinlen had a job to do here, though - and beneath that, where no one knew it but him, a mission - so as the boat rocked and settled into its birth, the young man gave himself a shake and pushed his glasses firmly up his nose.  He could already see a middle-aged, capable-looking man standing on the dock awaiting them, a look of authority all about him.  Quinlen did his level best not to trip over himself or fall into the water as he disembarked.  

“Mr. Tanner,” the man greeted Quinlen’s companion first, before turning his head in a motion reminiscent of an eagle towards Quinlen, “And you’d be Mr. Finch, I presume?  I’m Gareth Mallory, head of Eigengrau.”

“A pleasure to meet you, sir.”  He stuck out a hand, his long gloved fingers immediately encased in a firm grip.  Mallory wasn’t wearing gloves, showing skin that was chilled but tough.  He looked military.

“From now on, you’ll be our Q,” Mallory immediately informed him, and his firmness not only inspired confidence but made it quite clear that this was a fact, not a negotiable point.  He did, however, have the good grace to smile just the faintest bit and add as their hands disengaged, “Around here, titles are often safer than names.  There are some individuals who’ll get up to a disturbing amount of mischief with the smallest bit of data, so it’s best not to give away too much – not even names.”

Tanner added in a more openly world-weary tone, “Believe me, you’ll be better off if some of the agents just know you as ‘Quartermaster’.”

‘ _Spoken like a man who’s used his own name and gotten burned for it_ ,’ Quinlen – Q, for Quartermaster - thought to himself, a bit curious about this whole thing but willing to follow instructions.  He was well aware that he was walking into the proverbial lion’s den, but he intended to survive here - at least until he found what he wanted.  

“Titles encourage them to keep their distance,” Mallory concurred, but now he grimaced a bit, too, and Quinlen wondered just how well that theory actually worked in practice.  “Mr. Tanner will see to your luggage - and if you’ll follow me, I’ll get you settled.” Mallory was already turning and striding on ahead, to where tall, grey buildings sturdily held up the slate-grey sky.  

“Yes, Mr. Mallory.”  The dark-haired boffin scrambled to follow.

“Call me M,” was the immediate reply.  Without a single glance back, M led Q into the belly of the beast.

~^~

Q had been trying to get onto Eigengrau for over a year now.  He had his reasons - some of which he put on his resume, some not.  The night he was accepted (having gone so far as to create something he called ‘smart blood’ that would be priceless to the program), he got a visit from someone who knew _all_ of his reasons, and didn’t agree with them.  

“I always picked our brother for the suicidal one, not you,” the older man said with a droll, understated sort of sneer in his voice.  He sat in the shadows, having let himself in while Q was finishing up his final interview and signing paperwork that would make him the new Quartermaster of Eigengrau.

Now, Quinlen was packing, knowing that he’d leave in the morning.  He didn’t stop as he answered tetchily, “And I always thought you were the one saving Sherlock from himself.  Clearly, I was wrong.”

The older man’s expression hardened in the shadows.  His hand, where it rested on the arm of Quinlen’s sofa next to the umbrella he’d brought, clenched briefly like a claw before he consciously relaxed it.  “There is no saving Sherlock from this,” he said solemnly, “You have to accept that, Siger.”

“God, I hate that name,” Quinlen spat back, for the  first time pausing in folding his shirts, “You know that.”

“And you know that our entire family hates stupidity.  This is stupidity.”

“Saving our brother is stupid?”

“Don’t play naïve,” Mycroft snarled softly in contempt.  He shifted his umbrella in a nervous habit he’d never admit to having, his fingers wrapping familiarly over the smooth curve of the grip.  “Sherlock is not some damsel stolen away by a dragon, and you’re no knight in shining armor.  The Sybil System noticed – correctly, I might add – that our dear brother has a personality that will always attract death and violence.  Or are you so blind as to think his Psychopass was anything below 100?”

Quinlen paused again, leaning against the bed and the pair of half-folded trousers draped there.  He sighed in frustration, then straightened his spine.  “No,” he said, as much to himself as to Mycroft, “I’m not just going to give up on him and leave him in that place – Psychopass be damned.  It’s not like you or I have room to talk.”

The eldest Holmes’s response was a swift hiss, “Not another word on that.”

“Why?”  Quinlen turned finally, challenging now.  He wasn’t as tall as Sherlock, and would probably would always be slighter in build, and was likewise smaller than Mycroft - but power came from many places.  “Because you’re afraid that we’ll all be sent to Eigengrau?  Do you think we deserve it less than Sherlock?”

“Sybil does, and that’s what matters,” Mycroft said, unflappable again, although the glint of his eyes in the dark betrayed him, “Sherlock’s situation is unfortunate, but we can’t do anything about it.”

“You mean _you_ can’t,” Quinlen threw that like a dart, and felt a bit victorious as Mycroft almost imperceptibly flinched.  He went back to packing.  “Sybil happens to have a soft spot for me, and you know it.”

“We thought the Sybil System had a soft spot for Sherlock, too, but apparently she won’t turn a blind eye even to her favorites,” Mycroft warned in a low, grim voice that made Quinlen shiver involuntarily, “Not indefinitely.  Sherlock pushed his luck and got burned – I can’t have you doing the same.”

“How do you intend on stopping me?” Quinlen retorted in the dimness, hating this conversation, but knowing that it had been inevitable.  He’d hid his plans to save Sherlock for as long as possible, but Mycroft had probably known for at least a month now – in fact, Quinlen suspected that his eldest brother had even tried to sabotage him a few times, and had only barely failed.  Mycroft played long games, subtle games, so Quinlen had acted brash and fast, and therefore had just barely gotten the upper hand.  “You can’t very well have me arrested, not without drawing the attention of the Sybil System and risking exactly what you fear,” Q went on logically.  In fact, he turned again, saying straight to Mycroft’s face, “Go ahead – the result would be the same.  I’m going to Eigengrau.  The only difference will be if I go as an employee or as a convict.  Which will it be?”

Quinlen hadn’t raised his voice, but the fervor in it had become as apparent as bared steel by the end.  Also by the end, Mycroft was looking at him as if at a creature he’d never quite seen before.  The youngest Holmes, all grown up, more suddenly perhaps than the eldest had expected.

Finally, after a long and tense moment that stretched like barbed wire between them, Mycroft sighed and tapped his umbrella twice on the floor.  Face carefully blank and tone carefully bland, he observed, “Have it your way, little brother.  But don’t whine like a child when you realize that I’m right – Sherlock is a Hound of Eigengrau, and this is not a fairytale in which you can just waltz in and rescue him from a fate he waltzed into first.”

Q grit his teeth for a few seconds, then whirled on his heel and tossed his second-best pair of shoes into his suitcase.  “Watch me,” he flippantly shot back, even as he felt his stomach twist into very fearful knots.

Because Mycroft wasn’t wrong.  There were holes in the machine, blind spots.  Perhaps the Sybil System caught 99% of all criminals before they could harm those around them, but the remaining 1% she left free for no understandable reason – and Quinlen knew that because he was one of them.  Siger Quinlen Holmes was not a model citizen.  At a young age, he’d discovered hacking, but had kept it so secret that at first he had the hubris to think that Sybil simply didn’t know about it.

But then one day he’d gotten cocky, and had tried to hack the Sybil System.  And he’d succeeded.  Because she’d let him.  And throughout all of that – and every day before or since – his Psychopass had never risen above an uninteresting, harmless 66.  Sherlock was the same, even as it became increasingly clear to his brothers that Sherlock lacked a certain capacity to sympathize like the average person, or care about death.  And so was Mycroft, who didn’t talk about it, but who did increasingly amoral things to gain power, especially as he, too, realized that Sybil wouldn’t stop him.

Sometimes, Quinlen was tempted to hack the Sybil System again, just to try and ask a god why it had spared three (or perhaps more) mortals.  Having seen Sybil turn on one of those favorites, however, he didn’t know if he had the guts.  What he did have, however, was the guts to walk into Eigengrau under a false identity and cover.         

He just hoped he’d be able to walk out again.  He suspected that he was Sybil’s particular favorite, since she’d let him into her systems more than once, like a monster testing a hero, but this was a game of cat-and-mouse that Quinlen was dearly afraid he’d lose.

Because if Sybil didn’t turn on him and mark him as dangerous, then the Hounds of Eigengrau would likely kill him in his sleep.

~^~

Settling into his new quarters at Eigengrau had taken virtually no time at all.  While Siger Q. Holmes perhaps had some decent baggage loading him down, Quinlen Finch packed light, and was in full agreement that he hit the ground running at his new job.  Within an hour of docking, he’d shaken off his seasickness and was walking through the halls of Eigengrau’s main building – called Central, he was told.  Tanner was with him, providing both useful commentary and directions, although Q’s photographic memory meant that he wouldn’t need a guide more than once.  Tanner paused in explaining that Q’s branch had been lead by an interim Quartermaster (an import from the United States who was actually quite a skilled chap) as a broad-shouldered man with pale hair slicked back walked past them.  The fellow’s almond-shaped eyes, canted and narrowed into a look of almost catlike interest, slid over Q and just as quickly away.  Something about it was like a physical touch, however, and Q found himself tensing.  Then the man was past them, but not before Q caught a last-second glimpse of something glinting at his throat, mostly hidden by the collar of his shirt and jacket.  

When Q craned his neck in a rather obvious doubletake, Tanner patted his shoulder and urged him to keep walking.  “And that’s why you had to sign all of that ‘job hazard’ paperwork,” Tanner sighed in a tone that said he’d accepted all of this long ago.  He elaborated as the pale-haired man disappeared around the corner behind them, and Q turned back with a questioning look, “That was a high-Pass agent, a Hound, as they’ve been so quaintly labeled.  He was into cyberterrorism probably before the Sybil System came online, and we’re still tracking down all of his aliases - but needless to say, he’s killed enough people both directly and indirectly that he’ll never be let out into society again.”

“And he just… walks around freely here,” Q noted a bit uneasily.  All of that had been in the paperwork, but he still couldn’t quite believe it.  

“The collar keeps him and the other high-Pass agents in line,” Tanner shrugged.  He grimaced and added, “And apparently, in the early days of Eigengrau, they tried locking them up, and found out that they were tenfold more destructive when contained.”

“So as unsettling as it is,” the younger man hazarded, glancing over the top of his spectacles speculatively, “this is actually the least lethal option?”

“Pretty much.  Just always be sure to keep this on you.”  Tanner reached over and tapped the watch Q had been given - it had already been explained that it contained the gadgetry to incapacitate or even kill any collared agent within a three meter radius.  Q was intensely curious about the mechanics of the collars, and made a mental note to take one apart (and possibly this new watch, too) and find out how it ticked, in detail.  

They entered Q’s new branch a few minutes later, on the lowest floor of the building - underground, if Q recalled the blueprints correctly.  Here, he would be in charge of most things technological in Eigengrau, from computers to equipment.  The place was abuzz with activity now, with cubicles and workstations alive with people.  One of those people approached Q and Tanner almost immediately: an older man a bit shorter than Q, with a rather unremarkable face, but the start of a receding hairline and dark hair that stood up with just enough disarray atop his head to hint at a mad scientist look.  Behind dark-rimmed spectacles, however, his eyes were soft, and the smile he directed at Q was gentle and polite.  “Ah, you must be our new Quartermaster,” he said, with an unobtrusive American accent and a warm handshake that Q accepted reflexively.  While the way the fellow looked at Q was benign, his eyes were keen, now that Q was close enough to really take note of them.  “I hear that you and I go by the same last name, so I suppose it’s for the best that we are so dependant upon aliases around here.”

For a second, Q felt his heart stutter and skip in his chest, the blood in his veins freezing, but then he remembered that he’d chosen the last name of ‘Finch’ precisely because it was a relatively common last name.  He made himself relax and smile, trying to exude a harmless aura not unlike the one he was receiving from the small man in front of him.  “The level of personal secrecy here is truly rather astonishing,” Q admitted, tongue-in-cheek, aware that his own ‘personal secrecy’ went far beyond names and titles, “but I can see the necessity of it.  You can’t be too careful when working with so many dangerous individuals, I suppose.”

“Oh, they’re not all that bad,” the other man surprised Q by saying, a small and unexpectedly warm smile just playing at the corner of his mouth.  Otherwise, the expression was rather reserved, and Q was certain there was more going on beneath the surface than what he was seeing.  “Oh dear - where are my manners?  Call me H,” the older man changed the subject, giving Q’s hand another companionable pump before letting go.  Perhaps H didn’t have the accent of a Brit, but he had the professionalism and manners, Q had to admit.  “I’ll be happy to turn this branch back over to someone else, let me assure you,” he chuckled a bit, looking around him but looking more conservatively proud than honestly overwhelmed.  Q decided that he liked H.  Looking past Q to Tanner, H raised his eyebrows and asked politely, “Do you want me to take over from here, Mr. Tanner?”

Tanner waved them both off, saying something about boffins and  bonding time, at which Q and H both laughed identical, scoffing laughs and feigned offense.  As Tanner walked off, however, Q snuck a wary glance at H, trying to get a better read on him.  

Because Q had to admit, he and H seemed like delightfully matching personalities: unassuming, bland, professional but not unfriendly.  The only problem with that was that Q was _faking_ most of his personality, so he had to wonder if there was more to H than met the eye as well.  

~^~

Hidden secrets or not, H really was good company.  It was no wonder that H had been chosen as the interim Quartermaster, as he was clearly brilliant, even if he seemed to take pains not to show it off.  For example, he seemed to prefer focusing on Q’s accomplishments over his own: “I really must say, your Smartblood prototype was fascinating when I first read about it.  I was glad to see it come to fruition.”

“I’m pretty sure that that invention is over half of the reason I got this position,” Q admitted with a self-effacing smile, while inwardly cataloguing all of the strings he’d pull and documents he’d forged to get a foothold in Eigengrau.  But yes, that invention had been the cherry on top.  He was rather proud of himself, if he were being honest.  

“On the contrary,” H argued, surprisingly firm, but flashing another of his conservative smiles that twitched his mouth but made his eyes glint happily, “I’ve seen your application, Mr. Q.  It’s not often that a person of _any_ age - much less your age - has so many useful skills.  We’re lucky to have you.”  

Flushing a little and admitted that his ego had been well and truly stroked, Q accepted the praise, and they both fell to discussing Q’s invention: Smartblood.  It involved nanites that, if injected into the bloodstream, could be used to monitor individuals' vitals.  The medical uses were vast, but Eigengrau had been swift to see the more military (or perhaps penal) uses.  

“I’m sure that the higher ups jumped at the possibility to better ways to track high-Pass agents,” H noted wryly, as he and Q huddled over a computer, looking over the Smartblood specs with equally discerning eyes.  H had claimed that his specialty was computers, but he’d also admitted to doing a lot of research into biomechanics since hearing about Q’s invention, and the man was clearly a quick study.  The tone with which he discussed agents were a bit unexpected, though.  It seemed almost… familiar, and lacking in the wariness Q had come to expect after hearing M and Tanner talk.  H didn’t seem afraid.  “Eigengrau as a whole and Handlers in particular have always complained that high-Pass agents smart enough to be in the program are also smart enough to slip their leash, and Hounds truly do go off the radar with alarming frequency.”

“Don’t their collars have tracking frequencies?”

“Yes, but many of these agents are also generally smart enough to find ways to disable them,” H answered, and if Q wasn’t mistaken, was hiding an amused smirk.  His voice remained perfectly smooth, though.  

Q found his interest piqued, but before he could ask, the familiar voice of Tanner sounded from behind them, “Good to see you two getting along.  I assume H isn’t having any second thoughts about handing over the reins?”

“None at all,” H assured with seamless diplomacy, once again looking like a harmless uni professor, or perhaps a mild-mannered father of teenagers.  “Mr. Q seems quite capable.  In fact, we were just having a riveting discussion about his premier invention, Smartblood.”

“Good timing,” Tanner intervened, looking faintly relieved about that, “because I just came to inform you both - mostly the Quartermaster - that M wants to give that a go as soon as possible.  Whenever you’re ready, of course, but…”  He shrugged, finishing, “...The sooner we find a better way to keep tabs on the Hounds, the less likely it’ll be that 007 causes an international incident.  Again.”

H got serious at this point, his unflappable nature hardening into almost grimness as he leaned over to inform Q, “One more time, and it’s likely that administration will insist on putting him down.”

While Q followed the conversation with growing concern, Tanner put his two pence in, “There are a few agents who are stretching the tolerance of the higher-ups - even the most useful high-Psychopass agents can become more trouble than they’re worth.”

Q’s mind went involuntarily to Sherlock, who was practically always more trouble than he was worth, even to those who loved him.  He had to focus on keeping his tone even as he replied, “So my invention will save everyone the trouble of executing valuable assets, am I correct?”

“Yes,” Tanner replied, starting out blunt but then managing to add some levity, “And, you know, ensuring that none of them run off and start eating people without us knowing.”

Eyes widening, Q looked with an aghast expression between H and Tanner, sure that they were pulling his leg.  When their faces showed nothing of the sort, he couldn’t help but choke out, “You can’t be serious.”

Tanner just let out a thin bark of a chuckle that sounded just a bit strained.  “God, but I can’t wait until you start meeting them,” he sighed, then turned to leave with no more explanation than that.  “Keep M updated on the Smartblood.  Good luck.”

“He…”  Q turned helplessly back to H, who was looking studiously at the computer again.  “He was kidding about the…  No one eats people, surely?”

“I think we’ll wait awhile to introduce you to Agent 003,” was all H murmured in reply, before switching topics rather obviously, “So, are you ready to put your Smartblood to use?  I personally oversaw the delivery of your equipment a week ago, and the instructions for setting it up were marvelously clear.  If you want to run final checks, I’m sure it won’t take long, which will please M.”

Deciding that he didn’t want to pursue the topic of cannibalism, Q ran a hand back through his hair, took a deep  breath, and then pulled his new ‘Quartermaster mask’ more firmly into place as he exhaled.  When he spoke again, he was once again as posh as could be, “Of course.  Show me where you’ve got it set up, and I’m sure we’ll be ready to put it into practical use within the day.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q starts meeting the agents - who are a colorful bunch - and also finds an opportunity to start hunting for Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fans of 'Person of Interest' will hopefully enjoy this chapter, and a few other fandoms get cameo introductions, too. If you don't know a fandom, be sure to check out my [casting pictures](https://only1truthfanfiction.wordpress.com/casting-pics/casting-pics-for-sciamachy/) to see what any new faces look like! This chapter (and most of this fic) is set up so that knowledge of every fandom isn't necessary.

It did indeed take the whole day to get things set up and checked out.  Smartblood had already been tested and approved for use in humans, especially if those humans were convicted criminals, which Q’s morals flinched at a bit.  That was why he was personally interested in making sure his invention was safe, however, and he was pleased to see the same diligence apparent in H as well.  Q noticed that a lot of Eigengrau employees had a certain callousness towards the high-Pass agents they employed, but either H hid it better, or he was sincerely compassionate towards the dangerous Hounds.  Since Q’s older brother was a Hound, he couldn’t help but have some compassion himself.  

“Okay, I think we’re ready,” Q straightened after a moment.  In front of him was a regular chair, the right arm rigged with what looked like a bisected tube, open at both ends - it opened up like a hot dog bun, but when closed, it was designed to encase a human forearm and hold it still for an injection of Smartblood.  Q admitted, folding his arms, where he’d pushed his sleeves up to his elbows to work, “It looks terribly villainous, but all of the diagnostics check out, and with Smartblood, we’ll also be able to keep tabs on the physical health of agents in the field.”

H was watching Q unreadably, but when Q glanced over, the older man quickly nodded assent.  “I’ll have Mr. Reese come in.  He should be available.”  When Q looked nonplussed, H paused on his way to a nearby computer, “Reese is one of the most manageable high-Pass agents, and I know that he’s between missions at the moment and readily available.”

Unsure how to comment on that except to agree, Q nodded, then went back to triple and quadruple checking everything, because even if these were dangerous criminals, he didn’t want to be responsible for needlessly hurting them.  It was a surprisingly short time later when he realized that the room was very quiet around him.  Looking up, Q first saw H, who looked quite calm - and in fact was smiling his small, reserved smile.  That settled Q, because if H wasn’t bothered by the eerie quiet, then surely there couldn’t be anything amiss.  Following H’s eyes, however, Q turned and saw a tall, athletic man in the doorway, and Q found his eyes immediately riveted to the metal collar about his neck.  

Seeing the agent in the hallway hadn’t been all that scary because Q hadn’t had time to dwell on it - by the time he’d realized that he was in the same space as someone with a dangerously high Psychopass, the man had been departing already.  Now, Q knew what he was looking at, and the man had only just entered the equation.  Everyone else in the room save Q and H were finding other things to do and subtly easing away, but Q realized that he was going to have to get closer - and not just now, but over and over again, because this was his job now.  Swallowing down a suddenly parched throat, Q tried to wipe the fear off his face, reminding himself that he’d be no use to Sherlock if he couldn’t even survive his first day without running.  

The newcomer was an older man, but clearly still in his prime, looking fit and strong beneath a simple black jacket and white button-down, trousers  matching.  Brown hair was heavily touched by salt-and-pepper, especially on the sides, but he moved in an inexplicably capable way - a man who knew where his body was.  His expression was almost entirely blank and unreadable, however, pale grey eyes holding no emotion except for a certain understated watchfulness.  They flicked first to H, Q noted, before returning and settling on Q.  After that, the fellow affected an almost bored demeanor.  Q wasn’t sure what to make of it.  

“I take it you’re an agent then?” Q got his mouth working, more or less.  He bit the inside of his cheek and cursed himself for stating the obvious, although at least his voice didn’t sound as rattled as he felt.  

“That’s what they tell me,” was the mild response, and Q was surprised by how soft the man’s voice was.  It was rough-sounding but mild, and for a high-Pass agent, was well-calibrated to not sound all that dangerous.  The lack of any particular emotion was really all that gave it away as dangerous, although Q could very well see how this man could function in society like a normal person, if the need arose.  Perhaps that was what made him valuable enough to keep as an agent.  “What do you need me to do?” the man kept talking, and once again his eyes slid to H, making Q wonder if the question was really directed at him.  

“This is Mr. Reese,” H had the decency to properly introduce, and when Q looked over at him, he was struck by the uncanny sense that the professorial little man had just hidden a smile, “He’s known as 008 in the present inventory.  Mr. Reese-”  When H turned his attention fully to the agent, 008 seemed to straighten, something in him becoming more honed and alert, even if there was no definable change to his mask-like expression.  It was odd to watch, but subtle enough that Q probably wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual had he not spent so much of his life around Mycroft and Sherlock, who liked to profile people for fun.  “-This is our new Quartermaster, Q, the one who invented the Smartblood.”

Either 008 was a man supremely lacking in curiosity, or he’d heard of the Smartblood already.  He merely nodded, eyes sweeping lazily back to Q.  “The nanites that will monitor my every move, right?” he asked in that dry but easy rasp.  

A bit flustered to be back in the conversation again, Q almost physically jolted, then scrambled to find an appropriate response.  “Well… er… yes, if you want to simplify it.  When I developed it, I was really more interested in creating something that would be able to monitor bodily functions like heart-rate and body temperature.  With this-”  Q scurried over to a case and lifted out a small vial.  “-We’ll be able to monitor your health remotely, and even diagnose injuries or illnesses when you’re otherwise out of our hands.  But yes… it will also serve to track your movements.”

Q tensed, bracing himself for an untoward response, but was surprised when after a moment 008 merely made a noise of either dismissal or acceptance.  008 - Mr. Reese - flicked his eyes to the conspicuous chair set up in the center of the room.  “You want me to sit there and behave, I suppose?” he asked with just the faintest edge of jaded resignation in his voice.  His lip curled slightly.

In response, H gave the first full smile that Q had seen so far.  “The Quartermaster and I would  very much appreciate that, Mr. Reese, if you can manage it.”

Perhaps - just perhaps - the corners of 008’s eyes crinkled.  They seemed to hold a bit more light and life in them as they looked over at H again, and before Q knew it, the agent was walking with smooth, rolling steps towards the chair.  “Sounds easier than most of the orders I’ve ever been given,” he allowed magnanimously, and with one more glance to Q for confirmation - Q nodded - the tall man lowered himself into the chair.  

Q left H to get the agent situated, sensing that while 008 was indeed very even-tempered for a man with a high Psychopass, he was only this docile because he was working with someone he recognized: H.  Q had learned to eavesdrop very well at an early age, so he managed to appear absorbed in the process of checking his computers while secretly keeping an ear cocked towards H and 008.  He could hear by the low susurrus of sound that they began talking to each other almost immediately, H assuring, “These are the nanites I mentioned to you earlier, John.  Just trust me.”

John Reese, if Q wasn’t mistaken, murmured back with surprisingly little hesitation, “You haven’t steered me wrong so far, Harold.”

“I’ll endeavor not to change that status quo,” Harold murmured back in the warmest, most human voice Q had heard from him so far.  Q heard the muted snap of the arm-lock closing in place, and when he turned around, H was his politely aloof self again, standing next to 008, who was once again as unreadable and emotionless as a bored statue.  

Q pretended not to notice the hand H kept on the agent’s shoulder as the Smartblood was injected.  

~^~

John Reese, 008, really was a very mild-mannered agent.  He was polite, spoke little, and didn’t get overly excited about any part of the Smartblood procedure - not even the unavoidable spark of pain that was the needle going in.  In fact, the man’s face barely twitched, and Q gave a mental nod of respect to the man’s pain tolerance.  The needle’s tip was _not_ small.  After that, 008 sat still for all of the various tests that Q had to run before he was sure that not only was the Smartblood working, but it wasn’t causing any adverse effects to the agent.  The latter interest did seem to surprise 008 a little, but besides occasionally lowering his eyebrows at Q in consternation, 008 mostly just watched everything with a uniformly bored expression.  Even after he was released from the arm-lock, he didn’t move unless instructed, and Q went ahead and let H do most of the instructing - not only was the older, bespectacled man very smart and efficient, but Q sensed that he had a history with 008 that allowed him to order the man around a little.  No doubt Q would have to throw his own weight around later, but for now, it was nice to simply focus on the data and technological side of things, and let H - which perhaps actually stood for Harold, if Q had heard 008 correctly - do the interpersonal work.  

Eventually, it was clear that everything was in order.  “Well, 008, it would appear that you’re free to go.  I apologize for the discomfort,” Q said as primly but also as sincerely as possible, nodding towards the arm-lock which had delivered the sting of the Smartblood injection.  

008 once again glanced first at H then, at no discernible sign that Q could detect, stood and focused on Q.  “It’s all right,” the larger man said easily enough in his bland, rough-edged voice, “So long as it hurts less than taking a bullet, I’m not complaining.”

Before Q could think of a way to respond to that, the door to the room swung open, demanding attention.  Q (standing with his back to the door, between it and 008) turned around to see a generously curved, black woman leaning in the door with a determined look on her face.  She’d seen H first, and was saying to him immediately, “H, have you see John-?”  Then her eyes took in the rest of the room, and the harried look became one of jaundiced understanding as she saw John Reese.  “Nevermind,” she drawled, an American accent that Q couldn’t identify adding extra wryness to her words, “Instead of asking you, H, I should have known that he’d just _be_ here with you.  My bad.”

For the first time, 008 smiled.  It was hard to tell if it was a real smile or not, but it certainly showed a few teeth, and those steady grey eyes crinkled recalcitrantly.  “Agent Carter,” 008 greeted, putting some inflection into his voice and sounding friendly, “I was just about to come looking for you.”

“Don’t give me that crap,” the woman in the doorway said, but she sounded pretty resigned.  Her eyes rolled briefly upwards, but only for a second, before settling on 008 again as if expecting him to cause trouble in the interim.  “I’m supposed to be your Handler, John - not some babysitter that you escape every five minutes.”

“I’m sure that I stayed with you at least ten minutes this time.”

“God, they don’t pay me enough for this,” the woman now dragged a hand down over her face.  When she looked up again, she was a bit wrathful, and focused now on H, who sat up and tried - and rather failed - to look innocent.  “I take it you called him in?”

“I assure you, Agent Carter, I assumed my request for Mr. Reese went through you.  The Smartblood needed to be tested, and he seemed like the perfect candidate,” H said in his benignly professorial tone.  

Agent Carter cooled a bit.  Her eyes flicked from H to 008, with a faintly distrustful, motherly look - a very sorely tested motherly look.  Q decided to interject, stepping forward and watching as the woman’s keen brown eyes immediately swept over to him.  “I can corroborate their story.  I didn’t realize that this was causing you any inconvenience.  Agent Carter, is it?”  Q put on his most professional face and tried to appear friendly and unthreatening, an easy job, considering how aware he was of his gangly, nerdy appearance.  

The woman’s eyes nonetheless scanned over him, clearly calculating, although when her face softened her eyes warmed, too.  “You’re the new Q, aren’t you?”

“The letter and the title seem to go hand-in hand - yes, that’s me,” Q smiled back, and dared to walk forward for another handshake.  Once again, H seemed more than happy to make formal introductions, albeit belatedly like before.  

“Agent Carter, meet our new Quartermaster.  I can vouch for his skills, having worked with him all day.”  Q, despite being sure that there was more to H than met the eye, found himself warming at the sincere, uninhibited praise.  “And this is Agent Carter, who is the Handler assigned to 008.  They work together very closely, and make an incredibly efficient team.”

“When John listens to a word I say,” Agent Carter observed wryly, but the bite had gone out of her.  She was even smirking as she looked over Q’s shoulder at John, and the smile was just as real as it returned to Q.  “Call me Joss.  Did John give you any trouble?”

“Not at all.  In fact, he was a model citizen, for all intents and purposes,” Q assured.  

The next stretch of time was spent with Q explaining to Agent Carter (as well as 008, who wandered over with barely concealed curiosity) all of the things that the Smartblood did.  Poring over the computer and putting various readings up on the screen, Q began to feel at ease and almost at home, able to ignore the essentially psychotic agent at his back while he immersed himself in the technological babble that came easiest to him.  He began to hope that he’d perhaps not die a messy death before this was all over - at least if he kept finding people like H, Carter, and even the incredibly blank-faced Mr. Reese.  

~^~

Bill Tanner turned up to lead Q to supper, perhaps because Q had totally missed lunch.  “M got your report,” Tanner said, as he led the new Quartermaster through Eigengrau to the mess hall, “He was pleased to see that everything was going smoothly - and it did, right?  Go smoothly?  No problems?”

Q was glad to say with complete truthfulness, “No problems at all.  The nanites responded just as they were supposed to.”  He added, still a bit surprised, “And the agent we worked with - 008 - was surprisingly well-behaved.”

“Ah, Reese, yes,” Tanner nodded.  “If I could have chosen which of Eigengrau’s Hounds to introduce you to first, it would’ve been him.  He’s not a terrible sort.”

“He’s clearly not British,” Q observed carefully, as they kept walking, “Neither is his Handler.  Or H.”

“The whole trio of them are actually from the U.S.,” Tanner admitted, and Q gobbled up the information silently, storing it in case any of it was useful to his task, “Since their system is essentially a sister-system to ours, it was decided to try and collaborate a bit.  It’s surprisingly hard to find individuals with a high Psychopass who are also suitable for work as agents, so it’s been beneficial to import them.  009 is American, too.”  Tanner made an uncomfortable face, and added, “She’s not quite the picnic that 008 is, though.  I’d avoid her.”

“It sounds like I won’t be avoiding any of them, if I’m to put the Smartblood to universal use,” Q observed, also seeing an opportunity to fish for more useful information - hopefully information that would lead him to Sherlock.  He hadn't been given full access to Eigengrau’s records yet, and didn’t even know for sure where his brother _was_ \- although he knew that he was at least on the island.  “I’d be much obliged if you could give me a sense of what I’m dealing with.  I feel a bit in the dark, really.  I’ve seen only two high-Pass agents so far, and the only way I recognized them was by the collars, and I’m still not sure which ones might murder me and which ones can’t be bothered to try.”

Unhelpfully, Tanner replied, “Oh, any one of them might get it into their heads to murder you.  Even 008 has an impressive kill-list, although he’s at least pretty logic-driven.”

“So if he finds it… logical… he’ll kill me?” Q deadpanned, trying to hide how unsettling that was.  

“Pretty much.”

The unsettling part was, Q believed it.  John Reese had been like a machine for most of the time Q had been in the room with him, and from working alongside so many machines - including the Sybil System - Q knew that machines could turn on friend or foe without hesitation, if they felt that it served their programming best.  008 had seemed marginally human around H, however, which was reassuring.  

“Come on,” Tanner offered, changing directions and beckoning Q after him, “If you don’t mind being a bit later to supper, we’ll take the scenic route.  There’s a catwalk that overlooks one of the lounge areas, and there’s almost always a Hound or two there.  Then at least I can point out their faces before you meet any more in person.”

Q agreed that that sounded like a capital idea, and since he’d already gone hours without food, a few more minutes wouldn’t make much difference, and soon he was following Tanner through the massive warren that was Eigengrau.  The place was a veritable indoor hamlet, and Q made a mental note to review the blueprints again, in more detail, before he got himself lost.  

After all, he’d never be able to hunt down Sherlock if he was stuck to his tour-guide all the time, regardless of how pleasant Bill Tanner was.

The catwalk was more of a hallway open on one side, circling around and looking down on an entire room.  The room below was comfortable looking, with a telly, pool-table, and a collection of sofas - overall, it looked like any other lounge area that one would find in a hotel.  And, as promised, there were people there.  Q tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as he came over to the railing, peering down.  There were four men in the room, all well-built but otherwise not spectacularly scary-looking.  Q recognized the man from the hall, sprawled on a chair in the corner and watching everything with a glass of something held lazily in hand.  

Tanner stood next to him, doing likewise, but with eyes more familiar with everything.  No one looked up at them.  “Huh.  I expected the room to be emptier, but that’s 004, 005, 006, and 007.”  The first one, 004, that Tanner indicated corresponded with the agent that Q had met earlier.  At Q’s questioning look, Tanner elaborated on his statement, however, “They’re loners by nature, and most of them can’t stand each other.  In fact, someone left Bond and Hart-”  Tanner indicated 007 and 005 respectively, drawing Q’s eyes to two older gentleman with blond hair a few shades darker than 004’s.   “-Alone in a locked room together once, and they nearly killed each other in the five minutes it took for everyone to realize what was happening.  I’ve seen the video footage, and it’s fucking eerie. One second they’re sitting and smiling at each other like only insufferably posh men can do, and the next, they’re smiling at one another _and_ trying to rip each other apart.”  Q found himself looking at the men again with new eyes: 007, Bond, was playing a game of pool with the man labeled as 006.  The angle wasn’t exactly perfect for close examination, but he seemed relaxed, even smiling and laughing, all blue eyes, short golden hair, and easy movements.  005, Hart, was an older man with more lines on his face, and he was presently watching the news with apparent interest, and seemed to exude class and intellect in a way that reminded Q just a bit of Mycroft.  Neither looked the part of psychotic killers with hair-triggers.  

Tanner just shivered a bit and went on, “The freakiest part was the smiles… Never faltered.  Some people have taken bets since then on which of the two will end the other first, and I don’t know where I side.  Hart has a few years on Bond and more experience, but Bond is one scary sonofabitch.”  Q looked to Hart again, with his apparent focus on the television, looking like nothing so much as a businessman in between meetings - then at Bond, who could have just been a random bloke out for a game of pool with a friend.  Watching the latter man handle his cue, however, and stride about the table, it was possible to see the same lethal grace with which 008 had moved.  It was Q’s turn to shiver just a bit, realizing that first impressions could be eminently deceiving - and in Eigengrau, deadly wrong.  

Someone walked into the room - a rather unthreatening looking young woman with blonde hair pulled back in a snug ponytail.  Hart’s head immediately swiveled to her, in a way that almost spoke of precognition, he seemed so unsurprised by her entrance.  

“That’s Roxy - Hart’s Handler,” Tanner supplied, smiling, “Believe me, she’s a lot tougher than she looks.  Hart can be a pain in the arse to handle if you don’t respect who he is and what he can do, but Roxy has been working with him for over a year now, no hitches.”  Roxy walked over to Hart, and he acquiesced to let her lean close and speak to him, his posture remaining lax and at ease.  “Bond, on the other hand…”  Tanner was frowning again now, looking at the other agent who was now laughing and sinking another ball with obvious skill.  “He’s violently heterosexual.”

At the apparent non sequitur, Q turned on Tanner with a befuddled look.   “What?”

Perhaps a bit uncomfortable, Tanner shifted from foot to foot, then sighed and tried to explain, “If he has a female minder, he invariably gets her to sleep with him, but if we assign a man as his Handler… Bond kills them.”  As Q’s confusion turned to horrified shock, Tanner went on grimly, “007 has been up for termination more times than I can count because he’s so damn dangerous - only Hannibal has been up on the chopping block more.  They’re both lucky they’re so fucking useful.”  

This was getting more unsettling by the moment, and Q had to grip the railing and remind himself why he was here.  And that he couldn’t just run.  “And the other one?  006?” he asked, voice tightly under rein and hoping that the topic change would yield better topics.  Fortunately, it did.

Pointing to the agent playing against Bond, Tanner said even as 006 clapped 007 on the shoulder, “Most of the Hounds here aren’t social.  With anyone, high Psychopass or not.  But Trevelyan is an exception, and he gets along with Bond in particular.  Don’t let his charm fool you - he’s dangerous - but overall he’s probably one of the friendlier Hounds.”

Tanner went on to discuss a few more of the high-Pass agents, even giving the name to the fourth one in the room, 004, but Q didn’t hear it.  Because at that moment, James Bond, 007, looked suddenly upwards and found Q’s eyes so unerringly that it was impossible to imagine him ever being unaware of Q watching him.  The new Quartermaster froze, hands white-knuckled on the railing, as he was struck by eyes as pale blue as sky after a winter storm.  

Right then, for no good reason whatsoever, but with a soul-deep certainty, Q knew that he was going to end up cursing those keen blue eyes.  

~^~

Staff ate separately from agents, except Handlers, who seemed to keep at least semi-regular tabs on their high-Pass agents.  Without any particularly dangerous entities to mingle with, supper was a dull affair, and Q was grateful.  His brain was abuzz with anxiety, and the warring demands of brother and Quartermaster were going to split his skull in half.  Fortunately, no one asked him to have any more meet-and-greets with high-Pass agents, and Q was able to bury himself in the more mundane aspects of his new job.  There was a lot to do and even more to simply get himself accustomed to, and by the end of the day, Q had to admit… it was rewarding.  He’d had jobs before, but nothing like this, and never a leadership position that demanded so much of him.  

As he lay in his new Eigengrau quarters that night, he wasn’t sure if he felt more tired or exhilarated.  It was enough to push his constant worry about his brother to the back of his brain for a bit, just long enough to allow him to drift into a hard sleep.

The next morning saw more use of the Smartblood - which meant meeting more Hounds.  Q felt his anxiety return, and breakfast felt like a lump of coal in his stomach but as he stood next to the chair and waited for the next participant.  Victim?  The lines here were so grey, and Q didn’t know whether he was giving these men and women chains or whether he was helping them stay safe.  

There were over twenty high-Pass agents in Eigengrau at the moment, and Q began to see them throughout the day as everyone’s schedules allowed.  H was still Q’s right hand, but the man seemed decidedly less relaxed around any agent that wasn’t Reese, and the day got a bit rough by the time lunch rolled around.  H informed Q that the most dangerous agents were those labeled with numbers under ten, but to be honest, Q found those ones the least bothersome.  008, Reese, had been disconcerting but well-behaved, and 002 later on was much the same, although she was perhaps a bit more impatient.  When 001 came in right before lunch, a devilishly handsome brunet named Harkness, ‘friendly’ got redefined, but Q only really got nervous when he realized with total certainty that this man would happily have sex with him in the very chair he was sitting in.  Or in the hall.  Or probably even M’s office.  Q’s life had always been a more cerebral one (Holmes boys were smart, but not body-smart, Q had realized some time ago), and he began to wonder if blushing could be fatal by the time 001 left, Smartblood delivered and innuendos as thick as sex in the air.  Even H exhaled a noisy sigh of relief as soon as Harkness was gone, and collapsed back into his chair.  “I don't know about you, but I’m ready for lunch,” the older techie announced, sounding a bit hollow.  Q agreed with a wordless, almost desperate nod.

Ultimately, though, it was the agents with numbers above ten that caused the most trouble.  They were apparently the newest, and hadn’t quite realized the benefits that Eigengrau gave them - and therefore hadn’t “settled into the leash yet,” as Tanner put it at lunch.  “Those who have been here awhile, 001, 002, even 009, have realized that Eigengrau isn’t much different from any other job, so long as they behave,” Tanner said, biting into a sandwich.  He meticulously chewed the hefty mouthful before finishing, “It’s pretty much sunk in that either they enjoy their jobs here, and do what they’re told, or risk getting summarily executed for their high Psychopass.  Some of the newbies still think that there’s a third option, though.”

“A third option?” Q asked, nibbling at his own sandwich.  He felt eyes on him, but when he turned his head to look at the table across the room - where the Hounds sat - everyone was watching their food.  Harkness and 007 were sitting next to one another, though, and Q thought he saw the former turn his head and mutter something to the latter, causing mirrored smirks to spread across their faces.  Perhaps it was a Pavlovian response, but Q found his cheeks getting instantly red, and he turned swiftly back around again.

Tanner was finishing another bite.  He flicked away a crumb and answered without looking up from his food, “Escape.  They don’t want to accept that it’s either Eigengrau or death, so they think that if they fight hard enough, they’ll be free again.”  Another bite.  More chewing.  Q tried to control his heartbeat and remind himself that no one could read his mind.  Tanner completed his thought, unaware of his tablemate’s internal turmoil, “But no one escapes Eigengrau.  We might take them out into the world, but they’re on a leash they can’t break, and the smarter, older agents know that.”

The younger, stupider agents had tried to kill Q three times that day.  It was a harrowing series of experiences, and Q had to accept that this was his life now, and that he’d probably need anxiety medication before this was all over.  

The whole while, he struggled to find out where Sherlock was.  No one had mentioned him by name, or even a description that sounded like him, and Q didn’t know how to ask without raising suspicion.  If Sherlock was on the island, he wasn’t where Q could just bump into him nonchalantly, but the damn place was just so _big…_!  Q couldn’t remember ever being this wildly, desperately frustrated - not even when he’d learned that Sherlock had been found at a fresh crime scene for the fifth time, and the Sybil System had finally betrayed him, announcing that his Psychopass had risen above one-hundred.  

At least Sybil hadn’t betrayed Q yet.  

Maybe he needed to stop hunting for Sherlock like a Hound and start hunting like a hacker who had dove into the Sybil System more times than anyone alive.  

~^~

By day four as Quartermaster of Eigengrau, Q’s entire workspace had been named after him (‘Q-branch’), he’d been attacked four times (only once more after day one, by 009, a woman who went by Root and who made H intensely nervous - which should have been Q’s first cue that there'd be trouble), and he still hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Sherlock.  It was supremely maddening, especially considering that Sherlock should have been here, leaving his mark, for roughly two months at this point.  Fortunately, Q was also getting to know the terrain of Eigengrau much better, finding excuses to get short tours whenever he could.  He still wasn’t sure how he felt about wandering off on his own, but he was running out of options, and the main computer banks that he had access to were strictly monitored.  He could’ve hacked into them, but that would have either taken too long (attracting notice from coworkers), or else a fast and dirty hack would have raised internal alarms.  

However, Q had managed to access more detailed blueprints of the building without getting caught, and now had a nearly perfect knowledge of the entirety of Eigengrau.  It was a lot of data and a veritable labyrinth, but Q’s memory was up to the task, and he had his sights set on a room of computers two floors up and on the west side of the building, usually used by people higher up in Eigengrau’s paygrade.  

And the perfect opportunity to sneak up and get to them came at the end of day four, when alarms suddenly went off everywhere, and Q was informed that one of the Hounds was causing a ruckus.  Since it apparently wasn’t anyone that Q had thus far injected with Smartblood, no one thought to involve the new Quartermaster, so Q went along with the flow as everyone else scurried off to their quarters for safety reasons.  Q heard a few snippets about how security was trying to track down the agent, who had perhaps gone rogue but perhaps (somehow) hadn’t, but for the most part, Q was too focused on slipping away himself to listen too closely.  He was no spy - he had childhood practice in avoiding two elder brothers, but that was it, and therefore it was a heartstopping experience as Q looked about frantically for an opportunity to duck off on his own.  

Everyone else was still listening to the alarm clarion, and perhaps Q should have been, too - instead, he slipped into the first unlocked room they swept past.  And waited.  Panting and feeling like a rabbit with his heart thrashing in his chest, Q waited for someone to ask why he was hiding in… ah, it appeared to be a maintenance closet… but after about five minutes, there was only the alarm ringing.  The footsteps outside had disappeared.  Forcing himself to count to sixty nonetheless, Q waited, head bent against the closed door, before pushing back out again - and into an empty hallway.  

“Finally, something is going my way,” he breathed, then called up the photo-perfect memory of the map in his head, orienting himself in seconds, and striking out down the nearest westward hallway.  

He ran into security personnel a total of twice: men and women dressed in Kevlar and padding, faces tense and stern.  Both times, Q raised his hands and did a very authentic impersonation of a tech geek lost and afraid in the hallways.  Considering the guards were aiming guns at him, the fear was, at least, quite real.  Everyone had bigger fish to fry than one misplaced boffin, fortunately, so Q was quickly pointed in the direction of the living quarters and sent on his way - and just as soon as Q was out of sight, he returned to his previous path.  Fortunately, the second group that caught him was a different batch of guards, and no one realized that he wasn’t following orders in the slightest.  

It sounded like the action was headed in the opposite direction anyway, as Q hiked it up the stairs, wishing that he was a bit more athletic by the time he made it to the floor he wanted.  Sweating and panting, he leaned over his knees and clutched at the stitch in his side for a moment before forcing his feet to move again.  He spotted the room he wanted instantly.  It was locked, of course, and he didn’t have clearance, but just about everything was computerized, and there was no one around to see Q quietly opening up and hacking the security pad as he muttered to himself in the hallway.  He was inside within three minutes, and made an instant beeline for the nearest computer.  

Giving his fingers a little wiggle, he observed the computer for a quick second, muttered, “Luck, don’t fail me now,” and began to do what he did best.  Hack.  It was one of the things not on his resume, but was quite possibly the one thing he did as easily as breathing.  

Even these computers were not without security entirely, but Q had expected that.  In a building where highly lethal individuals walked freely, how could you afford to be anything less than secure?  But, as Q had suspected, these computers had fewer alarms set in place, so Q was able to dig through firewalls with a bit more speed and a bit more finesse without triggering anything.  Hopefully, too, no one with particularly adept computer skills would nose into these computers and find evidence of his messy work.  Q had no doubt that H would have spotted something wrong in seconds, but H didn’t have clearance to get into this room either.  

Q heard occasional sounds of chaos, but they were very distant, sometimes barely loud enough to be heard at all.  Soon he stopped jumping and twisting around to look over his shoulder at the door at every whisper of sound, and began to focus and make real headway.  It felt like ages, but he gave a tiny hiss of triumph when he managed to find a list of high-Pass operatives.  First on the list, grinning broadly: 001 - Harkness, Handler Cooper.  Q quailed as his eyes reflexively read further, starting in on the man’s criminal record.  It was coldly laid out, with no descriptions of circumstances to explain them, but the man was apparently more than a flirt with an infectious smile.  Q tore his eyes away, moving on.  Until he hit 003 - Lecter… but the ‘Handler’ section was blank, with a ‘Pending’ note tagged onto it.  Q started to read another note connected to the ‘Handler’ section, and his curiosity had him inadvertently reading _just_ far enough to realize...

The boffin gulped and dragged his eyes away again, feeling cold to his very core.  Tanner hadn’t been joking about cannibalization.  003 had killed and reputedly tried to eat his last Handler.  

‘ _What the hell have I gotten myself into_?’  The young man kept reading regardless, but tried to skim more, to turn his eidetic memory off and metaphorically swim through the data with blinders on.

It wasn’t until Q got to 010 that he found something - and he almost passed over it.  The position was apparently open, the agent having been killed in the process of running down a criminal in Manchester.  There was therefore a blank spot where there should have been a photo, and the data had been archived.  Linked to the 010 profile, however, was a listing not unlike the ‘Pending’ note for 003’s next Handler.  This time, Q clicked on it with a sense of hope as much as trepidation, and very nearly cried a little when it paid off.  

A mugshot of Sherlock, looking furious as hell and still somehow superior, stared back at Q from the screen.  He was apparently in limbo at the moment, having been accepted into the Eigengrau program, but not officially put into a position yet, even after two months.  At least he wasn’t dead, which was what Q had secretly been fearing this whole time.    

Just as Q started to read more closely, still needing to find out where in the world Eigengrau held pending Hounds, the door behind him opened.  In his hurry, Q hadn’t thought to re-arm the locking mechanism.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Q's hunting for Sherlock had to end in trouble - what kind of an author do you think I am? ;) Three guesses as to who's about to walk in on our undercover-Quartermaster...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q gets caught red-handed - but the end result is not quite what he expects. 
> 
> Or the chapter in which Q meets a bunch more high-Pass agents, and the results are... mixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q makes some pretty stellar first impressions in this chapter ;) This is where the fun really starts...

Spinning around, Q spouted out the first excuse that came to mind, “I’m sorry, with everyone running around, I got lost, and I just wanted to get out of everyone’s way, so I came in-”  Q immediately stopped talking, eyes widening behind his glasses, as he turned far enough to get a look at who had come in the door.  Probably not much taller than Q, but doubtlessly heavier than him by far from honed muscle, the same agent that Tanner had called ‘violently heterosexual’ was now standing just inside the door with surprised blue eyes locked on Q’s petrified hazel ones.  Dressed in a black pullover that hugged his neck and torso and dark-wash jeans that likewise hugged his muscular legs, 007 was unmistakably intimidating from this close, his whole frame athletic and powerful.  From as close as they were - just over two strides apart - Q could veritably see the shock being swallowed up by impenetrable calm like a body sinking under a very blue lake, and Q found himself quailing.  

There was a rumble and noise in the hallway, and despite how terrified Q was, it was the agent who actually jumped, looking back over his shoulder sharply.  Q put two and two together, blurting, “They’re hunting after _you_.”

“Got it in one.”  007’s voice was smooth with just a hint of gravel at the lowest octave, and just patronizing enough to make Q frown and hackle a bit.  The agent wasn’t paying attention, though, instead peaking out the door and then firmly closing it.  Then, to Q’s surprise, the agent’s blue eyes - god, they were blue - flicked around the room, narrowed slightly at Q’s position at the computer, then glanced away with apparent disinterest.  In fact, at that point the agent ambled over to another chair across the room.  

All told, it was a surprising development, one that had Q’s panic fading just a smidge.  “You don’t sound particularly excited about any of this,” Q observed next, when nothing serious happened beyond the agent sitting and eyeing him lazily.  The boffin dared to add, regaining some moxy, “If I recall correctly, there are guards swarming this building, and if they happen to check this room, you’ll be in a spot of trouble.  Am I right?”

Q didn’t know what to expect; 007 was, by Tanner’s definition, one of Eigengrau’s more senior agents, and therefore more sensible.  However, Q had just skimmed his file, and the man had a Psychopass of 139, which was terrifyingly high by Q’s reckoning.  He honestly wasn’t sure what the numbers _meant_ after they exceeded 100, only that anyone above that tended to seriously lack remorse and often struggled to recall morals consistently.  Or at all.  008 had been fairly sensible, but Q wondered if that had something to do with the situation and with H’s presence - and the fact that 008 hadn’t been on the run from Eigengrau’s guards.  

With all that in mind, Q didn’t breathe for a few moments after speaking, half expecting Bond to kill him with a rusty fork or something similarly gruesome.  Fortunately, the agent didn’t even move, except to arch one eyebrow and cock his head thoughtfully.  It was such a raptor-like look that Q found his shoulders tensing.  “And if _I_ recall correctly,” Bond drawled, in a tone that made Q instantly uneasy, “this is a restricted room.  The only reason I got in was because the lock had been bypassed.”  Q sank in his chair a little bit, glancing away, but that couldn’t stop the steady flow of words out of 007’s mouth as the man continued to observe, “So, if those guards happen to check this room, you’ll be…  How did you put it?”  

Q let out a little growl, anger overcoming fear briefly.  He was focusing on his hands, not looking at the Hound in the room, but he thought he heard a quiet chuckle at his expense.  “Oh yes - ‘in a spot of trouble.’  Am I right?” 007 finished.

Q had lived with two absolutely insufferable older brothers, so he didn’t anger easily, but dammit if there wasn’t something just infuriating about the agent he was sharing space with right now.  Anger continuing to rise and get the better of reason (and with reason, reasonable fear), Q frowned and turned stubbornly back to the computer.  This was still his only chance to find out information about Sherlock, so if 007 wasn’t going to murder him, then he was going to make the best of it.  “How do you know I didn’t just lose my key?” he challenged moodily.  

“Because I know for a fact that when these alarms go off, everyone stops working, so I find it hard to believe that a boffin like yourself would be here instead of in your quarters,” Bond answered amicably, then added with a shrug that Q could see out of the corner of his eye, “But mostly it’s because you’re a pisspoor liar, and I know that you’re the Quartermaster, and therefore should be two floors down.”

Flinching at being caught out, Q turned an involuntary guilty look Bond’s way, and therefore saw the smugly triumphant smile ghost across the man’s face.  It was a rugged face, not typically handsome, but holding something dangerously alluring in the curve of the mouth, the sharpness of the crows’ feet that lined the eyes.  

Staring at those eyes, at the danger and challenge in them, but also in the way 007 was just lounging in his chair instead of being outwardly threatening, Q made a decision.  He turned back to the computer and kept typing.  “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Wearing glasses meant that Q’s peripheral vision wasn’t exactly extraordinary, but he was still able to see the surprised twitch Bond gave.  Q felt ridiculously proud to have caught the older man off-guard.  “I…”  007 started, pausing, then continuing in a faintly incredulous tone, “Are you seriously going to just ignore that you saw me?”

“Well, I figure that so long as you’re in here,” Q replied, feeling his way through this conversation as he went, typing faster as well to make good use of borrowed time, “you’re not causing trouble, and that’s what everyone is worried about, right?  Keeping you out of trouble?”

“Yes,” was the rumbled response.  Q glanced over to see a measured nod.  The look of laziness was gone, as was the posture, replaced by intense attention and wary interest.  When 007 moved, it was only to reach up and pull aside the high collar of his shirt, revealing a collar of another kind entirely against the skin of his throat: the metal torque all Hounds wore.  “Although some of the fuss might also be because I’m off the radar right now.”

That got Q to look over, brows lowering.  He’d had a bit of a chance to look over the specs for the collars, and they were truly impressive things.  “You deactivated that?” he couldn’t help but ask.  When 007 poorly hid a smirk, and nodded, hand falling away again, Q made a humming noise and noted, “No wonder everyone is in a tizzy.”  Then he went back to his work.  

The sounds outside continued to rise and fade; no one had zeroed in on Bond yet, apparently because they had no effective way to track him to begin with.  Q reflected that this was precisely why everyone was scheduled to get Smartblood.  “That’s it?  No other questions?  No demands that I turn myself in?” 007 asked after a tensely stretched silence.

Q was having a devilishly hard time finding out where exactly pending agents were housed.  It made him growl low in his throat.  He spared some attention to respond, however, because he had enough common sense to want to not offend a Hound of 007’s calibre, “Why should I?  You’re not hurting anyone here.”

“And what if I leave?”

“I don’t think you will.”  Q was growing more and more certain of that.

Bond’s voice dropped a few octaves, until it was a low rumble, like the threat of an avalanche in the distance, “And what if I stay here and hurt _you_?”

The fear returned sharply enough that Q had to stop typing momentarily, because his hands had started shaking.  By focusing on the screen, however, he was able to at least hold onto his facade of calm for the few beats it took him to regain his voice, and find words that sounded calm if not steady, “You’ve been on the run for approximately twenty minutes now, yet I haven’t heard about or seen any bodies, and you don’t have any blood on you.  If you really wanted to rack up a body-count, you’d also be going towards people, not away, and this is a relatively unpopulated sector of this building, what with the alarms draining everything away to the living quarters.”  Q wasn’t anywhere near the profiler Sherlock was, but he was no slouch when it came to observation, so he kept going, not daring to stop, “And I don’t think you’re going to leave this room, because your purpose isn’t escape.”

“Oh, it isn't, is it?” Bond asked in a tone that was either sarcastic or slightly amused.  

“No,” Q finished in a rush, “because again, if you really wanted to escape, this is the wrong part of the building for it.  There’s no roof access to the helicopter pads from this section of the building, and the boats are also in basically the opposite direction.”  Q puffed out a sigh, finally turning to look at Bond, a bit desperate for some sign that he wasn’t about to be summarily executed.  He wasn’t sure if it was a good sign, but 007 was now sitting with his arms draped forward over his knees, watching Q with undivided interest.  Q admitted on another heavy, defeated exhale, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re hoping to accomplish, but it doesn’t actually seem that dangerous to me, so I don’t feel as though I need to waste my breath screaming for reinforcements.”

“Because you don’t want to draw attention to yourself either?” 007 hazarded, a slight grin flickering onto his face again.  His eyes were like coldfire, intense and blisteringly blue while still somehow managing to look playful.  If fire could be playful.  

“I never said that,” Q retorted primly.  He went back to typing.  He also went back to lying out his arse.  “I have a perfectly legitimate reason for being here.  And before you ask what it is-”  Q had heard 007 taking in a breath to do exactly that.  Q held up a belaying finger, and valiantly tried to keep it from shaking like the rest of him.  “-It’s above your paygrade.”

For another long moment there was dead silence.  Q continued to worry that it would become literally dead silence, but he was allowed to continue his typing unmolested.  Eventually, he heard the chair creak as Bond leaned back again.  He commented, “You’re quite an uppity little shit for someone I could snap in half.”  Despite his words, his tone was surprisingly light, like someone pointing out a new species of bird they’d just spotted on their morning walk.  

Q’s fingers skewed on the keys and he had to rapidly delete and start over, silently cursing both his own nervousness and 007.  “So long as you call me ‘sir’ and stop bothering me, I don’t care what you think of me,” Q said tightly, while trying to simultaneously block 007 out of his head and pay excruciatingly close attention to the man’s every move.  

“I’ll see what I can do about the second part,” 007 surprised Q by acquiescing, and then further surprised Q by doing just that.  The high-Pass agent closed his mouth, slouched back in his chair, and proceeded to do nothing at all but quietly watch Q work.  It was eerie as fuck, but at least it wasn’t bloody and painful.  Q counted his blessings, even as the rest of his luck started to fail him - some of the information on this computer was buried deeper than he’d thought.  It wasn’t that pending agents were being purposefully hidden, but in all the information that Q was finding, no one seemed to feel that it was necessary to draw a map to the location of their holding cells.  Right now, Q was facing the prospect of finding a Sherlock-shaped needle in an Eigengrau-sized haystack, and that wrung a sound of frustration out of him.  

“Not finding what you need there, Quartermaster?”  It was obvious that Bond was playing nice, his tone jovial with a veneer of politeness like honey on shit.  The fact that 007 was wearing a shit-eating grin didn’t help the analogy, when Q glanced at him.

Somewhat sourly, Q snipped, “Notice that I’m not asking you what _you’re_ doing,” and got nervously back to work.  He got the sense that 007 kept watching him, contemplating.  Further contemplation on 007’s part and information-hunting on Q’s part was cut short, however, as the noises outside definitely escalated, to the point where Q couldn’t help but turn around, pressing his lips together into a thin white seam.  He managed to hold back the curse that wanted to fall from his lips, but he couldn’t get his hands back to work, now that discovery seemed inevitable.  

Bond hadn’t moved except his eyes.  Now, though, as Q’s jaw worked and clenched as if physically chewing over a new plan, the larger man rose fluidly to his feet.  It was like watching a big black cat move, with his dark clothing and easily powerful motion.  Q’s eyes were drawn to him immediately, and the Quartermaster tensed in preparation for trouble, but instead was favored by a wintry but somehow still charming smile.  

“What are you doing?” Q asked, anxious.  His heart rate picked up.  

Arctic blue eyes watched him for only a moment, but then moved to regard the door instead.  “Oh, I figured that it was high time I stretched my legs again.”  Bond’s face was in profile, but one eye still swiveled back to Q, just in time for a playful, “Since you were decent enough not to blow my cover, the least I can do is not blow yours, eh?”

“I…” Q stuttered, looking away, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bond shrugged, admitting, “I’m not really sure either, to be honest, but I figure one good turn deserves another.  Don’t you agree?”

Since the man was clearly waiting for a response, the smug bastard, Q choked down his anxiety and rising annoyance, forcing himself to unclench his teeth and reply, “Yes.”  The sounds of guards were getting more audible.  Q wanted to bolt and run, but knew that it wouldn’t do him any good - he wasn’t much of a runner to begin with, and honestly still shaky from his swift sprint up the stairs.  Bond would have much better odds, even if Q couldn’t parse out why the man was offering to take the risk in the first place.  Unless it really was a case of _quid pro quo_?

While Q was still trying to figure out the enigma that was 007, the blond-haired agent winked at him, then strode towards the door.  He opened it, leaning out just far enough to get the lay of the land, then commented back with a roguish grin that made Q want to slap him a little, “Don’t stick around too long, Q.  Wouldn’t want someone else stumbling across you, and asking silly questions about why you’re digging around on a locked computer.”

Flushing at the reminder that Bond had him pegged, even if he didn’t know the details, Q huffed and replied resignedly, “Noted.”

“Nice chatting with you,” was what Bond left Q with, then disappeared like smoke up a chimney.  

Q was left staring and blinking as the door clicked shut behind Bond; he heard the lock reengage, which wouldn’t keep him in, but would make it less likely that someone would immediately find him out.  It was all very puzzling, although what Q found himself muttering to himself was, “No man his size has any right to move that quietly.”

Not long after, and there were footsteps pounding past the door, and a massive amount of shouting.  Q imagined 007 at the head of the pack like a wily old fox, proud tail strung out behind him like a blood-russet banner, and grinning with all his sharp teeth as he ran.  It wasn’t much longer before the alarm turned off - signally that the case had come to an end - but it was long enough for Q to close out all of his windows, clean up his trail, and beat a hasty retreat back to floors he was actually supposed to be on.  He still didn’t know exactly where Sherlock was, but he was closer.  

Only once he was in his room did the true import of everything that had happened hit him.  Closing his door, Q sank down against it, shivering hard.  

He’d just met 007.  Agent Bond.  A man too dangerous to let out in normal society without a lethal collar on and a Handler to watch him.  A man who apparently had a habit of killing his Handlers, if he didn’t decide to fuck them instead.  And since he seemed to only fuck the female ones, and Q was decidedly male, then… it felt suddenly like Q had dodged a very real bullet.  A blue-eyed sort of bullet.  

“Shit,” Q swore, burying his face in quivering hands and not caring as he smeared his glasses, “How the hell am I still alive?”

~^~

Bond had been apprehended.  There were no casualties, although apparently 007 bloodied a few noises before he was subdued.  Apparently it was a relatively mild affair, compared to other such occasions.  

“When Hart was first brought in, he tried to escape,” said Tanner, who was fast becoming Q’s source of gossip.  The man knew everything.  Q wondered if Tanner had worked here from the day the first stone of Eigengrau had been placed or something.  “He didn’t actually disable the collar, but he still nearly got away.  It was pretty damn impressive, really, but the body-count was high enough that he was nearly terminated right then.”  Q ate his breakfast, listened, and tried not to feel sick at how detached the word ‘terminated’ sounded.  True, the Sybil System had declared these individuals to be monsters, but did that really mean they didn’t deserve to be treated as humans anymore?  “However, the higher-ups decided that Hart’s actions just proved that he was even more useful than they thought, and I think they even sat down and had a talk with him.  High-Pass agents don’t have contracts, per se, but I think that Hart got something good out of the deal.”  Tanner shrugged, went back to his breakfast.  “At the very least, he’s accepted his place in the program since then, so either the reward or the threat was big enough to make him rethink his views.  Hannibal, though...”  

A woman with skin a shade lighter than Handler Joss Carter sat down on Tanner’s far side, immediately groaning, “Don’t you dare talk about that man at the table.”  At Q’s guardedly curious look from Tanner’s other side, the woman leaned forward.  She was also slimmer and sharper-featured than Carter, but had a hardiness to her that matched the toughness of 008’s Handler.  “We haven’t met, but I’ve heard all about you - the youngest Quartermaster in Eigengrau’s history.”  She stuck out a hand right over Tanner’s tray, and perhaps it was punishment for bringing up Hannibal.  Q shook it, feeling immediately the strength of her hand, the callouses on her palm and fingers.  “It’s not a particularly long history yet, but still,” she smiled.  “Call me Eve.”

“This is Eve Moneypenny,” Tanner supplied, stoically waiting until his plate was clear and he could reach his food again, “She’s 006’s Handler, and has been for some time .”

“I was 007’s originally, but after a few months, we realized that I worked better with Trevelyan,” she supplied, and Tanner immediately busied himself with eating.  Q, meanwhile, desperately hoped that his thoughts weren’t showing up on his face, because he was vividly recalling what Tanner had told him about 007 sleeping with his female Handlers.  The terrible part of Q that had no filter wanted to ask if that was the real reason Eve had switched Hounds…

The part of Q that was a functional adult put a sock in the filterless part, and shoved it to the back of his brain where it couldn’t get him into trouble.  He managed to put on a smile, and thankfully the topic changed swiftly.  It turned out that Eve was very fun to talk to, and her agent - 006, Alec Trevelyan - was due to come in today for Smartblood.  

So was Bond.

~^~

By the time Q got to his branch after breakfast, 007 was already waiting for him - in fact, he’d already been put in the chair, right arm secured in the arm-lock and left one handcuffed similarly on the other side, and there were four armed guards flanking him.  It was really rather unsettling.  Despite all that, Bond looked supremely at ease and calm, smiling charmingly when Q entered, as if shamelessly amused by the whole thing.  It was also a dangerously knowing, overly familiar look, and Q did his best not to skitter away from it like a guilty cockroach from the revealing light of day.  

“So this would be 007, would it?” Q feigned ignorance, going over to one of his computers and plugging in a cartridge of Smartblood so that he could at least pretend to check whether the little nanites were alive and reading correctly.  In reality, he was stalling and he knew it.  He reminded himself that he wasn’t supposed to have met Bond outside of seeing him from the catwalk with Tanner, and all he was meant to know about yesterday’s shenanigans were rumors.  As it was, the only sign that 007 had been leading Eigengrau’s guardsmen on a wild chase seemed to be the vivid bruise on Bond’s left cheekbone.  Of course, one of the guards behind him was sporting an even more vivid shiner, and the only person smiling in the room was 007 himself.  “I heard you were doing some unsanctioned extracurriculars yesterday evening,” Q finished as blandly as he could.  

He half expected Bond to reply with “So were you,” and held his breath in trepidation.  Therefore, he was flooded with relief when one of the guards answered instead, grunting, “This smug bastard slipped his leash and made a run for it, yeah, but he didn’t get far,” and nudging the back of Bond’s head with a rifle-butt.  The agent didn’t flinch, but something in his eyes got flinty and hard.  Q reviewed his conclusions from yesterday (that 007 hadn’t actually been _trying_ to escape anywhere), but kept his thoughts to himself.  

The guard kept talking like 007 was a mute, and it took only one quick glance at Bond’s face to see just how little the agent appreciated that, “Out of everyone here, he probably needs this Cyberblood or whatever the most.  I’d like to see him _try_ to disable it.”  Again the butt of the guard’s rifle prodded at the agent in the chair, and Q began to worry that 007 would try to enact some retribution despite the odds stacked against him.

“Smartblood,” Q corrected while at the same time stepping into the metaphorical frey, “not ‘Cyberblood’.  And you do realize that the primary purpose of these nanites is to monitor the health and condition of the agents, don’t you?”

“Not for this one it won’t be,” the guard maintained, and a few of the other guards chuckled.  “Believe me, if you had chased this blue-eyed monster around as much as we have, you’d know that the _primary purpose_ of your invention here is to make sure we can keep tabs on him.”

There it was again, the reminder that these agents were treated like beasts more than men, a mentality that Q was having a hard time learning now to swallow.  He was aware of H in his periphery, watching him, while working at a nearby computer terminal from a chair because an old leg injury was bothering him more than usual today.  Q couldn’t afford to blow his cover by being soft-hearted, but he also didn’t think he was a good enough actor to join in with antagonizing 007.  The best he could manage was to walk over to the agent and his guards, pretending to focus on his work while murmuring in a seemingly distracted voice, “I see…”  

As Q got close with the vial, 007’s hands clenched.  He didn’t start thrashing and struggling, like some of the younger agent had, but the signs were there: 007 knew what was coming, and he didn’t like it.  Now that he was closer, Q could see that they’d handcuffed Bond’s ankles, too, giving Q a whole new appreciation of just how dangerous this man was considered to be.  This was emphasized when Q also got a closer look at 007’s knuckles, seeing how they were still raw and swollen from yesterday.  When Bond had walked in on Q in the computer room, the boffin hadn’t really noticed any such wounds.  True, he hadn’t been looking, but he strongly suspected that 007 had wracked up these injuries after leaving Q’s presence.  

Q was nearest Bond’s right arm, naturally, as that were where the armlock lay ready for the ampule of nanites - but since that arm was also more firmly restrained than the other, it allowed Q to really look at Bond’s split knuckles as the clenching of the man’s fist caused some of them to sluggishly bleed.  “Were these ever seen to?” Q found himself asking, his brain-to-mouth filter failing him.  In fact, his brain must have been failing him entirely, because the little spark of righteous rage he felt on 007’s behalf gave him enough reckless courage to even reach forward with one hand and just barely touch the back of one of Bond’s fingers.  The fist unclenched suddenly, but Q thought it was more in surprise than anything else, because 007 didn’t make a grab for him.

The guards looked, ironically, caught off-guard.  One of them managed to find his voice pretty quickly and answer, however, “Er… yes, Medical did see him, last night.”

“These look like they should be bandaged,” Q opined quietly, then physically forced himself back on task.  He was aware that everyone was staring at him, with varying looks that said they didn’t know what to do with him.  Returning to his ‘Quartermaster persona’ as soon as possible seemed wise, so Q straightened his spine primly, straightened his button-down and cardigan with a little tug, and changed topics as professionally as possible, “Well then, let’s get this over with, shall we?  We’ve all got jobs to do.”  And wasn’t that the truth?

 _Now_ James struggled.  Q had already come to appreciate the thought that had gone into the chair: it was bolted down, and sturdy as hell, no doubt with muscular individuals like 007 in mind.  Even Root, the least physically intimidating Hound to come through this room, had possessed a frankly terrifying strength to her, but the armlock and the chair it was attached to had held her, too.  Now, James gave the designers a run for their money, as his cuffs barked against the metal arm and chair-legs, and Q swore the whole thing gave a groan.  Bond’s charming smile had fallen away, revealing something colder and harder, and it was like a frosty fist reached into Q’s chest and clamped down upon his heart.  The fear froze him where he was for a moment, right in front of Bond, ampule in one hand and a set of frostbite-blue eyes locked on his face.  

The guards immediately surged forward, doing their job, and none too gently.  It actually broke through Q’s fear a little, to see so many hands releasing guns to instead grab at the blond-haired man in the chair, and Q found himself lurching forward, too.  “Enough!  You’re not helping,” he snapped, sincerely unsure if he was talking to Bond or the guards.  No one else seemed to know the answer to that either, especially as their new Quartermaster now had one hand on Bond’s chest and the other pressed warningly on a guardsman’s arm as it lay wrapped around Bond’s throat.  It was surreal for Q, really: he was distantly aware of the hard, impenetrable look on his own face even as he was viscerally aware of the way powerful pectoral muscles heaved in a steady rhythm beneath his left palm. At first, Q just met the nearest guardsman’s startled eyes, staring him down, but when Q shifted his vision, he found pale-blue eyes watching him not with fury, but with curiosity.  Q backed away, and watched as the  guards unexpectedly did the same.  

Wishing that he’d had a second cup of coffee - anything that might have helped him act just a bit more sensibly just now - Q inhaled and exhaled to a careful count to ten, then tried again.  This time as he approached, he focused on 007, who was now watching him with a guarded sort of keenness, unblinkingly.  “Look, I know you don’t believe me, but this is meant to help you,” Q found himself explaining, steady and quiet and calm, wondering where the calm had come from as he showed Bond the small glass container of unassuming liquid, “When I first began this project, I was informed not only of the high rate of agents like yourself going off-grid, but the even higher rate of you getting into locations where no one could track you during missions - and then being without back-up in dangerous situations.”  It was hard to tell if James was believing any of this; he hadn’t started struggling again, but Q was aware that looks could be deceiving, and a mask of calmness could be shattered by a second of explosive movement.  So Q kept talking, wanting to diffuse this situation as much as possible, “I wasn’t lying when I said the primary purpose of this is to keep track of an agent’s vital signs, diagnosing injury and illness instantly and even from a distance, so that assistance can be rendered.  I’ve heard that high-Pass agents of your skill are difficult to replace, but this is meant to ensure that you don't’ need replacing.”

For a moment Bond just looked at him, narrow-eyed, gaze like a scalpel.  No one else moved or said anything, and for a moment the agent’s jaw worked silently, as if chewing words over but unsure whether or not to spit them out.  Q just waited.  Finally, 007 spoke, voice low but impossibly smooth, “You know what I think?”

This was a voice that charmed birds from nests, only to devour them.  Q shivered.  “What?”

“That this is just a more advanced leash than before,” was the belligerent answer, cold to its core.  

One of the guards immediately cuffed 007 over the back of the head.  “Watch your mouth!”  

Q watched the chilling light in Bond’s eyes turn positively murderous, and just as the agent made as if to swivel his head around and retort back, Q let his temper fray and snap.  It helped to firm up his voice, so that he had a lot of authority in his tone when he interrupted the worsening scene, “Stop it, all of you.”  When Q found himself once again the center of attention, he held his head high, making his displeasure quite clear in his frown and his tone as he said steadily, “This is my branch, and I’ll have no unnecessary violence here.”  Feeling some of his energy drain away, Q sighed and added a bit more softly, “007 was merely speaking his mind, and I’ve nothing against that.  We all have our jobs-”  Q looked from the guards to Bond, pointedly, and couldn’t help but add, “-And our leashes.”  He wasn’t sure if he hoped the agent would read into that or not, but once again his mouth seemed to be running away from him.  Q quickly looked back to the rather startled guardsman.  “So if you’d kindly stop intervening, I’d like to _do_ my job.”

No one argued at that point, and only then did Q realized that his hands had been clenched into white-knuckled fists.  As he forced them to loosen, he noticed that Bond had opened his hands as well, a strange change of demeanor that had Q looking to the man’s eyes immediately.  It was almost disturbing to see that the anger had drained out of them, replaced again by that implacable, close-lipped smile, an impenetrable expression of practice charm.  Whatever the hell Bond was thinking now, Q had no hope of parsing it out.  Gathering up his nerve again, Q stepped forward, and this time slipped the ampule into its slot in the armlock, murmuring not unkindly, “I don’t like this anymore than you do.”  Which was entirely the truth, but on more levels that Bond probably knew.  Q wasn’t happy with essentially microchipping a person against their will, and Siger Q. Holmes wasn’t exactly thrilled to be playing Quartermaster while hunting for his incarcerated brother.  

“Are you sure?” James sallied back in an irksomely patronizing tone.

Some of Q’s pity evaporated, and he punched the button to inject the Smartblood.  Bond’s body gave an all-over flinch and he swore colorfully, because the needle was not exactly small, and Q had not exactly given him any forewarning.  Straightening, Q noted primly before turning back to his computers to check the read-out from the newly implanted Smartblood, “Perhaps I enjoyed _that_ just a little.”

~^~

The rest of the day was uneventful, but only by comparison.  All of the other agents seemed to come in willingly enough, although now Q couldn't help but see it as forced, and the only other time that multiple guards were present was when 003 came in.  It turned out that this was the infamous Hannibal, who ate his last Handler.  

“Allegedly,” the man said in regard to that crime, voice tinged with a thick accent.  Q couldn't place it, although Hannibal had a masterful control of the English language even if it wasn't his mother tongue.  “Some people in this place have an unfortunate habit of jumping to conclusions, and I assure you, there is no proof that I ate anybody.”  Of course, then the man smiled, and while it was a terribly charming smile, it also revealed a set of incisors that Q could have sworn were pointed.  The agent screamed ‘predator’ in a way Q had never seen before, and it took effort not to shake as he worked around the man.  H once again didn’t leave his computer terminal, but Q was willing to bet that it had nothing to do with the older man’s aching leg this time.  

Because it was instinct, Q fell back on carefully precise politeness and professionalism to hide his building fear, and only found out later that that was exactly the right thing to do around Hannibal.  Apparently the man had killed people before for rudeness alone, something that Q really wished someone had warned him about.  

“Are there any other lethal quirks that I should know about!?” Q demanded later, gesticulating wildly as the pent-up adrenaline finally sought an outlet.  Q felt like he was quivering right down to his innards, and thankfully everyone had cleared out for lunch except for himself and H, and Bill Tanner, who had made it a habit to come fetch Q for meals (lest Q forget them entirely).  

“Well, I already told you that Bond tends to either fuck or kill people,” Tanner defended a bit weakly.  Which didn’t help.  At all.  Q had been entirely too close to the man not to think about the man’s habits on a personal, horrifying level.  Pushing his fingers up under his glasses and against his eyes, Q groaned defeatedly and continued to pace back and forth blindly.  His mental picture of the room assured him that he wouldn’t hit anything, although knocking himself unconscious now sounded rather promising.  

Unbeknownst to Q, Tanner and H were exchanging worried looks, no doubt concerned for the sanity of their new Quartermaster.  It wasn’t exactly the first time that close interactions with Hounds had raised the Psychopass of Eigengrau employees, and neither of them wanted to find a new Quartermaster, not when Q was actually doing rather well.  Scrambling about for something to say, Tanner caught on a thought and blurted, “Do you speak Russian?”

Q paused in wearing a track in the floor and lowered his hands, “...No?”

“Damn,” Tanner signed explosively.

“Why?  Is this because Hannibal is Russian?” Q tried to guess.  He’d stopped reading Hannibal’s file long before learning his backstory.

Tanner was shaking his head, however, sitting back on a nearby table and admitting, “No, actually, he’s Lithuanian.  It’s just that this means you won’t understand the warning signals of at least three agents - Bond, Trevelyan, and Hannibal all know how to speak Russian, especially when they’re up to something.  It’s like a storm-warning, if you can interpret it.”

H chimed in, a bit more helpfully, “Mr. Reese speaks multiple languages as well, and he and Ms. Shaw - 002 - often switch to an Israeli dialect when they don’t want to be overheard.”

Folding his arms now, Q just stared for a moment, then asked with something between caution and awe, “Just how smart are these agents?  What’s the average I.Q.?”

Tanner let out a breath past his teeth and turned to H, who for a moment feigned ignorance, then pursed his lips and gave up on the ruse.  “I don’t put much stock in I.Q. tests, but it’s safe to say that most of the high-Pass agents in the Eigengrau program have above-average intelligence, albeit in disparate fields that don’t necessarily include scholarly components.  Streetsmarts rather than book-smarts, if you will.”

“That’s what sets them apart from other high-Pass individuals that the Sybil System identifies,” the realization dawned on Q.  Suddenly, Sherlock’s instant inclusion in the program made sense.  “Eigengrau doesn’t just want them because their Psychopass numbers are unsalvageable, but because they’re geniuses.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Tanner argued, then seemed to regret saying that when H and Q both gave him sharp looks that said they didn’t believe him.  Tanner extemporized, “I’d just like to point out that Trevelyan refuses to do simple math, Sameen didn’t realize that a whale was a mammal, and Harkness once had to go to Medical because ‘his dick was broken’ - his words, not mine.”

Since Q’s brother Sherlock had a habit of forgetting that the sun was the center of the solar system (as opposed to Earth, or Sherlock himself), he found he couldn’t argue with that.  However, for the next five minutes and then the entire walk to the mess hall, the three of them argued about what exactly constituted ‘genius’ and whether the agents at Eigengrau were not actually quite a bit more dangerous because they were smart.

~^~

“All right, where’s this chair of doom I’m supposed to come in and sit on?” the boisterous voice broke across Q-branch and startled nearly everyone in it.  

Q looked to the door in surprise to see an agent who reminded him of three agents at once: the man had blond hair like Bond’s (albeit longer and more tousled), grinned with all of his teeth like Hannibal, and had the honestly terrifying playfulness that Harkness had.  It probably said something about Q that it was the last trait that worried him the most, and had him subtly checking his exits.  

This was Alec Trevelyan, 006, half an hour early for his appointment and a lot larger than life now that Q wasn't seeing him from one story up or through a computer screen.  

Realizing that running away would not only be cowardly but downright counterproductive, Q pulled his ‘Quartermaster facade’ on a bit more tightly, and cleared his throat, pointing towards the Smartblood station and its apparently infamous chair.  “I’m not sure about a ‘chair of doom,’ but if you’re 006, then I’d be much obliged if you’d sit there,” he said, finding some of those manners that had apparently worked so well on agent 003.

On Trevellyan, the effect was that the man suddenly chuckled, deep in his chest.  “God, you’re adorable,” he noted as if it was the most pleasant surprise of his whole day.  He added in a tone that said he was musing to himself but at a volume that said he didn’t give a fuck if Q heard, “James said a lot of things about you, but he didn’t say you were adorable.”

“I…”  Q stumbled, finding himself more off-kilter by the second, and possibly starting to flush an embarrassed pink, “You…  What?”

“I had a chat with Jamesy,” Alec said as if that clarified everything, even as he sauntered over and dropped down carelessly into the same chair that other agents had fought against, or at least eyed warily.  Green eyes looked up at Q with all the expectant brightness of a cat gazing up into a birdcage.  

“Who?”

“James.  James Bond - you know, 007?” Alec laid out, raising both eyebrows, and finally Q realized who 006 was talking about.  Q started to get nervous about just what had been said, until Alec shrugged and said brightly, “He actually speaks quite highly of you.”

‘ _What the hell_?’  Q had been expecting the man to curse his name at best, betray him at worst.  Even more off-balance than before, Q busied himself with filling an ampule of Smartblood and tried to regain his mental and verbal footing.  “Oh… really?” was all he managed to clumsily say.  

006 either didn’t notice the verbal klutziness or didn’t care.  He cross his long legs at the ankles and affected the look of someone waiting in a barber’s chair, chatting amicably, “You’ve actually been getting pretty good reports from all us Hellhounds, at least those of us who have met you.  I mean, all Hannibal said was that you were _polite_ , but for him, that’s practically praise.  Harkness gives your arse a nine out of ten, but he said that he’d be willing to raise it to a ten out of ten if you came to his quarters and proved you could stick the landing.”

Unsure whether to be scandalized or flattered, Q leaned against the nearest desk and pushed his glasses up his nose, as if that could somehow help him see this whole bizarre situation with more clarity.  “What…?” he started, stopped, and started again with candid bluntness, “I don’t even know what you’re saying anymore.”

Fortunately - or, rather unfortunately - Alec was more than willing to elaborate.  “I think that what Harkness means when he says ‘stick the landing’ is _you_ landing on his _stick-_ ”

H, who had been working studiously in the background until now finally stood up sharply.  He cut in with a rather obvious amount of desperation in his usually mild-mannered voice, “Okay, that’s quite enough!”  There were blushes of color starting up on his cheekbones, and Q was sure that he himself wasn’t much better.  

In return, Alec affected an innocently questioningly smile, hands folded over his trim stomach and acting like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.  

The blessed silence that followed allowed Q to focus on what he was doing for long enough to get the Smartblood all set up.  After he had everything ready, he asked without turning from his computer, “Weren’t you supposed to come later?  With your Handler?”

“Moneypenny believes that on time is the same as being late, so I figured that I’d be good and come early,” the green-eyed agent said guilelessly.  

Q didn’t believe that for a second.  “Why do I have the sinking suspicion that you’re lying through your teeth?” Q sighed fatalistically, walking back towards 006 and the chair.  

The agent answered once Q was within arm's’ reach, without moving.  “Maybe because you’re a fast learner.  James said you were smart.”

“It sounds like James Bond has an awful lot of opinions about me,” Q muttered, unsure how to feel about that.  “Should I be worried?”  He gestured that Alec should put his right arm into the waiting cuff.  

The agent obliged, the only indicators that he wasn’t completely at ease being a subtle tensing of his entire frame.  Like James and most of the other high-Pass agents, Alec was bigger than Q, heavy with muscle, but right now he was doing a good job of appearing unthreatening.  “Probably,” Alec admitted in response to Q’s question, “But, I mean, that’s a given, right?”  Alec’s grin was as crooked as the day was long, knowing and wry.  “We agents have all got a few pieces missing in our heads, and our morals don’t work the same way yours do,” he went on with unexpected transparency, speaking of his high-Pass status without hesitation, “So, yeah, go ahead and worry.  You’ll live longer.”

H cleared his throat, speaking with very subtle warning from across the room, “Mr. Trevelyan…”

“Oh come on, that was barely even a threat!” Alec leaned his head back to look around Q and defend himself to H.  Meanwhile, Q took the opportunity to snap the arm-lock closed, feeling marginally safer once that was in place.  It hadn't originally been designed with restraint in mind, but Q was glad that it served a purpose beyond just keeping needle and vein lined up.

“It’s all right, H,” Q spoke up calmly, getting the ampule in place but also subtly watching 006 from under his fringe of hair, “I think I’ll know a sincere threat when I hear one.  Mr. Trevelyan was just giving sage advice, am I correct, Mr. Trevelyan?”

Alec was watching the arm-lock now with open distrust, and seemed to be regretting his visit.  A scar on his jaw stood out as his teeth briefly clenched.  “Call me Alec.  But yeah, just advice.”

“Now, Alec,” Q tested out the name, recalling M’s strict lecture about the power of titles in a place like Eigengrau and wondering if it was a good idea to lose formalities, “I’m going to tell you something that I didn’t tell 007.”

“And what is that?”

“This is going to sting a little,” Q said, then promptly pushed the button.  The results were much the same.  So far, no agent had particularly liked the injection process - even the stoic Mr. Reese had flinched the teensiest bit, and he’d had H at his back forewarning him of everything.  Alec, with only Q’s timely warning, swore almost as colorfully as 007 had, his free hand coming over as if to grip the spot of pain within the armlock.  Q was just turning away to check his computer readouts when he heard the agent grit out, “Shit, I thought James was kidding about you being a little sadist…”

Q decided to pretend he hadn’t heard, but felt a little buzz of emotions in his stomach that could have been pride - after all, it sounded like he was making a lasting impression.  He had a feeling, too, that it would pay off to be remembered as more than a spineless, harmless, bespectacled boffin.  That, and he also had a feeling that it wouldn’t do to let anyone know that he secretly sympathized with the very Hounds he was working with.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now you've officially met James, and Hannibal, and Alec - and even Jack Harkness a little ;) Many thanks to [DoraTLG](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DoraTLG) for assisting me in Hannibal's personality in particular, as I am very new to that fandom. I couldn't have written him even marginally accurately without her <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which Sameen Shaw nearly offends Hannibal - and Ianto Jones enters a group of new guardsmen to Eigengrau. Amidst those guardsmen is a certain American profiler, who may not be as low-Pass as he seems...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get to meet a few new faces in this one ;) The chapter summary gives it away, of course, but Q also gets to meet Silva again... which'll be fun, right?? :D

With the increasing fear of rising Psychopass numbers, and the almost infectious way that those numbers could rise if too much time was spent around others who already had high numbers, it was deemed necessary to cycle out the Eigengrau guards on a regular basis.  This also lowered the chance of any men becoming compromised - because while the Hounds were known to be dangerous and manipulative, and also to be remorseless liars, people still fell to their charm from time to time, or their threats.  If a high-Pass agent ever escaped, it was almost always because they’d co-opted some guard.  So, by cycling different guards through regularly and just as often bringing in new recruits, the window of opportunity for the agents was smaller, the risk of them taking advantage of the guards lower.  

Hannibal Lecter always managed to manipulate guards and other Eigengrau employees by the dozens anyway.  And those he couldn’t manipulate, he slowly destroyed, mentally or physically.  The ocean was slow and patient, but everything bent before it - or broke - eventually.  It was a well-known fact that Hannibal Lecter was one of the leading causes of high Psychopasses in others.  

Of course, some people were more useful to him whole and sane.  Namely, the cooking staff, who had started letting him into the kitchens about half a year ago ago.

“One of these days I’m going to figure out why you get actual food while the rest of us get slop,” Agent 002 said from across Hannibal at the table.  When everyone looked at her - except Hannibal, who kept eating, but perhaps smiled a little - she raised her hands and defended, “Hey, I’m just calling ’em like I see ’em.  I’ve eaten worse than this-”  She indicated her own meal, then finished as she pointed to Hannibal’s, “-But I don’t think I’ve ever even _seen_ food like that, and it sure as hell isn’t what the rest of us are eating.”

Inwardly, Hannibal thought that, given a choice, he would not even be eating at the same table as them, much less the same food.  Outwardly, though, he pretended not to hear, instead fabricating a smile like magic, seasoning it until it fit the atmosphere of the table.  When he directed it at Shaw, she narrowed her eyes, but otherwise didn’t react.  Out of all the high-Pass agents, Shaw was the least skilled at reading people, which was almost worthy of Hannibal’s pity.  “If the usual food here is not to your liking, then what do you like?  What is your favorite dish, if you could have anything in the world?”

Shaw seemed surprised at first, but then actually stopped to contemplate it.  Next to her, Reese had been obviously tensing in preparation to split up a fight, but when Shaw relaxed and looked towards the ceiling as if her memories were all flocked there, the other American Hound visibly backed down, too.  Hannibal rather wondered what it would have come to, if he’d decided to actually goad Shaw into attacking.  Shaw was a dangerous woman, even collared and locked up in Eigengrau.  They only had plastic utensils on hand right now, of course, but in all honesty, there wasn’t an agent in Eigengrau worth mentioning who couldn’t kill someone with a plastic spoon.  

John Reese had to be aware of this.  The salt-and-pepper-haired Hound barely looked up from his meal, and kept eating stoically, like a machine.  Like an animal.  In a vague sort of way, Hannibal appreciated the man because he was silent, but now he felt an ugly sort of anger rise up because Reese bent so easily to the power of Eigengrau all around them.  Reese was, in his own way, a very physically strong sheep, but nothing more.

“A Beatrice Lillie,” Shaw answered, smiling suddenly.  Hannibal drew his attention back to her, mentally checking to be sure his smile hadn’t faded or slipped, but no - it was still a perfect glaze atop the bones of his face.  “From Park’s Deli.  With pastrami, extra mustard, spicy and yellow.”  If nothing else, her face showed a laudable appreciation of her food, as her eyes grew distant and happy at the memory.  “Enough pepperoncinis to just about die from, but no mayo.”

“You have very particular tastes,” Hannibal observed.

“All served with a bag of chips.”

The smile got harder to hold in place, but Hannibal did his best, even as he fought the urge to curl his lip.  Particular tastes and _refined_ tastes were not the same thing.  “Sometimes it’s the side dishes that bring out the true flavor of the main dish,” he responded with a nod, and while Shaw seemed to be too lost in her memories of food to be listening, everyone else was beginning to watch the exchange cautiously.  Especially 007.  Three days ago Hannibal had considered making an abattoir out of Q-branch to show what he thought of being injected with Smartblood.  It was already infuriating enough that these animals thought that they could collar him like a common cur, but to also inject something foreign under his skin to track him…  Hannibal had certainly killed people for less.

But the Quartermaster and his fellows had all been such singularly polite people that Hannibal ultimately decided that it would be a shame to destroy them all.  There were so few people who valued good manners nowadays…  And, of course, there was the peculiar fact that _James Bond_ had taken the time to politely ask Hannibal not to murder the new Quartermaster.    

Of course, because Hannibal _had_ spared the Quartermaster, that also meant that Agent 007 now owed Hannibal a favor, and that in and of itself was a rare treat.  While outwardly discussing Shaw’s favorite pastrami sandwich, Hannibal mentally amused himself with guessing the paths of 007’s mind - why he’d come to Hannibal, suspecting a bloodbath, why he’d taken the time to ask him to avert it, why he’d singled out the new Quartermaster in particular.  It was certainly more interesting than playing nice with Shaw.  Hannibal made a habit of studying people like most others studied bugs under lenses, and most motives were quite easy to parse out.  The first question, for example: it was easy to see why the blue-eyed agent had suspected that Hannibal was going to paint the walls red, because that was simply what Hannibal _did_.  It was in his nature, to kill those who were lesser, and those who dared attack him first.  While the true length and breadth of Hannibal’s crimes would probably never be discovered, what little was known was quite accurate, and just as Bond played fox-and-hound with the guards when he got bored, Hannibal killed people when they didn’t treat him with respect.  He culled the herd.  Weeded out the annoying and stupid and self-important.  

But why had Bond thought to stop him?  That was a more interesting question, because Hannibal didn’t really think 007 capable of particularly complicated emotions.  And when he’d approached Hannibal in one of the common rooms, bringing with him a glass of champagne (that was most certainly smuggled in) like a sort of olive branch, 007 hadn’t seemed particularly emotional.  He’d seemed… curious, perhaps.  

It had been decades since Hannibal had felt anything like real curiosity, and he missed it.  The champagne had also been very good.  Perhaps that was why he’d taken James’s delicately phrased request under advisement, instead of deciding then and there to spread Q’s ribcage open like a butterfly.

~^~

Days like these were the times Will missed his old home in Wolf Trap the most.  

The Machine of the United States and the Sybil System were not unlike twins separated at birth: by nature they were incredibly similar, but by nurture, intrinsically different.  So when Will had been forced to shoot a man back in the United States and had found himself unable to get over it, it looked increasingly likely that the Machine would begin to see him as a threat.  Insanity and dangerousness were often the same thing to the Machine nowadays.  There were no Psychopass numbers in the United States, but that just meant there was less forewarning before potential threats were arrested, so the FBI, instead of risking losing their best criminal profiler to the penal system, had requested that Will become part of the exchange program with the U.K.  Will had always thought that he was too standoffish and awkward to have real friends, but apparently he’d had more than he realized, because before his mental status could get him arrested in the United States, his records had been carefully doctored and he’d been shipped off overseas.  Considering Will’s (slightly edited) record as a profiler, he was readily accepted.

“You do a lot of good, Will,” Jack Crawford had said right before Will boarded the plane to Heathrow, bending to catch Will’s eye and ensure that his look of sincerity couldn’t be escaped.  Will hated eye-contact, but gave in to it just this once, as Jack squeezed his shoulder and finished quietly, “Now, go do good somewhere else, and try to feel better.  Think of it as a… working vacation.”

When Jack said ‘try to feel better,’ he probably meant coming to terms with the unavoidable murder of Garrett Hobbs.  Unfortunately, Will was pretty sure that that was only a symptom of the problem, which was Will’s uncanny ability to get into the head of anyone he came across.  A trip overseas wasn’t going to clear his head any, not in that sense.  

Now Will was facing his new job, a questionably prestigious position on the island of Eigengrau, and wishing he was back home in Wolf Trap, Virginia, with his dogs and his solitude and his fishing lures.  He’d realized pretty quickly that Jack’s two commands were impossible to fulfill at the same time (the very act of doing good as a profiler tended to make it hard to ‘feel better’), but since Jack had been _so nice_ as to get him a job as a profiler in Britain, Will figured that he’d just have to do the best he could with the options he had.  Right now, on a boat to the infamous Eigengrau, he was heading to where theoretically he’d do a lot of good.  

And where he’d most likely struggle to keep hold of what sanity he still had, getting into the heads of some of the most insane criminals in the world.  

Will tried not to focus too closely on the men and women around him, all prospective guards for Eigengrau and abuzz with energy.  Everyone’s emotions were easy to guess, especially for someone like Will: fear, excitement, the righteous not-quite-anger that came with the knowledge that one was about to work with serial killers and other necessary evils.  Will had to focus hard on the chopping sound of the waves around the boat, the sting of the salty cold air, just to keep those second-hand emotions from swallowing him.  It felt like being surrounded by a foreign sea, and Will just happened to be a dangerously porous vessel.

When they docked and disembarked, Will heaved out a sigh that felt like a kind of vomiting, physically trying to eject all of the emotions that the close-quarters voyage had pushed into his skin.  Will hated crowds.  He’d met other people with a similar Ochlophobia, but he’d yet to meet anyone with reasons like his.  In fact, he’d never even heard of anyone who was so capable of empathizing with people around them that it was as if he was constantly in danger of becoming someone else.  That was why he only liked to deal with small numbers of people at a time (when he couldn’t be alone entirely) - in small numbers, it was easier to keep his defenses up, to remind himself where his boundaries began and ended, and realize when bits of other people were slipping into his thought processes.

“Feeling a little seasick there, Graham?” someone called, and Will - still bent over his knees, trying to ignore the crawling sensation of someone else’s anxiety under his skin - looked up and just barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  The speaker was a young guardsman named McKenna, with his cronies around him, who had been entirely too interested in Will ever since the American’s arrival.  Interested in bothering him.

Will’s reclusive nature had always been an attractant for bullies, ever since childhood.  Of course, that had eventually been solved by Will avoiding bullies, by dint of avoiding people in general.  All in all, he was comfortable as a recluse, and what he probably resented most about this reassignment was that he’d been stuck almost constantly around people, and it was starting to seriously wear on him.  It was like being a white shirt tossed into a washing machine with a load full of colorful clothes - he could all but feel the other colors dyeing him, and he was always worried that those colors wouldn’t come out.  It didn’t help that he’d been stuck with McKenna and his fellows in particular, and rumors had started to multiply thanks to the chatty group:

“There’s something off about that Graham bloke.”

“Did you see him at that last crime scene?”

“Way too interested if you ask me - or, at least, entirely too accurate for my taste.”

“And they say his Psychopass is just fifty-four…?”

That last one was the phrase that really had Will worried.  Upon coming to the U.K., he’d gotten an official number, and there were secure sites that anyone could log into to get an update on their number just to see if they needed to start doing relaxing/nice things to correct an upward spike in their Psychopass.  At the time, Will did indeed have a Psychopass of fifty-four.  

But he heavily suspected that that wasn’t _always_ the case, and he worried that some of his cohort was beginning the suspect the same.  Before being assigned to Eigengrau, he and his cohort had worked homicide for a few weeks, enough for McKenna and company to see that off-duty Will Graham and on-duty Will Graham were very different.  At the scene of a crime, Will was well aware that the better he did his job at profiling, the more honestly insane he seemed, even if he came back to his normal, shy, socially awkward self right afterward.  Mostly.

People’s Psychopasses _did_ fluctuate, but usually it was like the level of a lake: it took a lot to get it to rise or fall significantly, and if/when it did, the progression was pretty easy to follow.  A body was water didn’t suddenly go from a meter to a mile deep overnight, not without some pretty obvious warning signs along the way - in other words, there were no surprises in Psychopasses, with the exception of extreme circumstances.  Experiences of extreme trauma could cause a Psychopass to jump dramatically, but that was akin to a sudden and unavoidable mental break.  What Will could do… was also remarkably similar to sudden and avoidable mental breaks.   _Reversible_ sudden and avoidable mental breaks, thankfully, but that was one of the fears that kept him up at night.  It was entirely too easy to adopt bits and pieces of the personas he submerged himself in.  

“It’s like he gets right into the killers’ heads,” McKenna himself had whispered at one point, no doubt thinking that Will was out of hearing range, but Will had excellent hearing.  He’d kept pretending to be deaf, however, because what was he going to say?  ‘ _You don’t know how right you are_ ’?  ‘I _could get into your head, too, without even trying - I just really don’t want to_ ’?

“All right, everybody,” came a low voice in a rolling accent that stood out, even to Will who was still getting used to hearing British accents instead of various American ones.  “Come queue up over here.  I’m sure you know the drill.  The dock is narrow, so don’t push.  Pulling you out of the drink will be just as unpleasant for the person drowning as for anyone who has to try and rescue their soggy self.”

Everyone’s head turned, and Will would have remained confused about the new accent had not he heard someone whistle and chuckle under their breath, “Just listen to those Welsh vowels.”  Will had enough military training to line up in an orderly fashion with the others, like soldiers awaiting marching orders.  He mostly watched his feet, fidgeting a little as his personal bubble was once again invaded by the people near him, but chanced a glance up at the person addressing him.  The fellow looked surprisingly young, with boyish features and neatly trimmed brown hair.  Counteracting the youthful, clean-shaven look was a suit and tie, looking pretty out of place with the wild waves on one side and the mountainous structure of Eigengrau on the other.  Will looked down again before his damnable empathy could start reaching for bits and pieces of what made this man who he was.  

“Now, someone will bring your luggage to you - your quarters have already been assigned,” the young man continued, his voice almost melodic as it rose and fell, reaching easily over the ambient noise of the water between them and the distant British shore.  “My name is Ianto Jones, and it'll be my pleasure to take you there, but first, a few warnings.  If you don’t know already, all collared individuals are high-Pass agents.  Do not interact with them.”  Ianto lowered his head a bit, so he was looked at everyone seriously from under raised brows.  He gave his last sentence a moment to sink in, before continuing, “Generally speaking, they don’t attack without being provoked.”

“And what if they do get rowdy without being provoked?”  This time Will did roll his eyes, just to himself, because of course that was McKenna asking that.  

Ianto may have looked young and green, but the look he turned towards McKenna’s part of the line was surprisingly level and steady.  When Will glanced up, interested despite himself, he could read a surprising level of self-assuredness in the look, like someone who had both feet firmly on the ground - and therefore was not easily swayed.  “That’s what Handlers are for.  Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to handle a high-Pass agent on your own - if they decide to cause trouble for you, you’ll want their Handler to…”  He paused a bit, as if to roll the word in his mouth for just a second, then seemed to grow years younger as he shrugged and finished guilelessly, “To, well, handle it.  If at all possible, Handlers should be the first responders to any Hound-related incident.  Always call for back-up.”

In theory, that sounded fantastic, but already Will wondered just how often that was actually possible.  For Will, though, it was a moot point - he was here as a profiler, not a guardsman and certainly not a Handler.  After shooting Hobbs, and honestly even before that, he’d been a rather abysmal shot, and according to Jack, all of Will’s letters of recommendation had stressed that his brain was far more useful than his gun-hand.  That wasn’t strictly true, but like the true depths of his terrifying empathy, Will kept some facts to himself.  Besides, the last thing he wanted was to be put in a position where violence was called for.  

They followed young Ianto Jones away from the boat and towards the looming presence of Eigengrau.  There were continued mutterings of how Mr. Jones looked too young and soft to even be on this island, but mostly silence descended as awe overtook those who had never seen Eigengrau before, and as a familiar sense of impending doom struck those who had survived shifts here before.  Will hunched his coat closer against the chill, damp weather and marvelled despite himself at the massive structure.  Under a sky of pewter-colored clouds, it looked like something alive, the whale that had swallowed Jonah.  This whale was harboring a lot more than random Biblical figures in its belly, however, and Will tried to keep a lid on his anxiety as Mr. Jones got them past security and into the maw of Eigengrau.  

~^~

Unsurprisingly, guardsmen shared quarters - three bunks per room, allowing for six guards to sleep there, which Mr. Jones had explained quite calmly was just in case a Hound ever decided to attack the guards directly.  It was harder for one agent to pick off six guardsmen at once.  

Someone asked, “What about two agents?”  

Ianto informed them that agents never worked together.  

Will was still stuck on the fact that Mr. Jones had called six-to-one odds _harder_ and not _impossible_.  They actually hadn’t come across any high-Pass agents on their trek to the bunks, and it was hard even for Will to imagine any one individual capable of that much violence.  He’d seen a lot of ways in which one human being could kill another, but already it was clear that Eigengrau was on another level entirely.  

Will hated sharing sleeping-space.  For starters, he didn’t like company in general, and besides that, he had nightmares.  He’d had them for as long as he could remember - twisted, uncomfortable not-quite-memory dreams that came from absorbing too many external personalities - but they’d worsened after he’d been forced to shoot Garrett Hobbs.  Back at Wolf Trap, he’d gotten used to handling it: his many dogs were always good to wake up to, even if they couldn’t defend their master from his own subconscious, and there were plenty of towels to place on top of sweat-soaked sheet and a sweat-soaked body.  Will definitely resented his old boss a bit for removing him from that.  And to top it all off, it turned out that McKenna had been assigned as one of his roommates.

At least Eigengrau intended to keep Will busy, be it in the daytime, or when he was up at night, shaky and damp with fear-sweat and unable to get back to sleep: when everyone’s luggage arrived, Will’s sparse belongings came with an added bonus - a secure laptop containing the files on every Eigengrau agent.  “Oh joy, a bit of light reading,” Will murmured to himself after stiffly thanking the men who delivered the device.  While everyone else would be either sleeping or getting their marching orders, Will would be studying up on some of the most lethal men and women alive.

~^~

Getting Smartblood into the last of the high-Pass agents would have left Q feeling triumphant (moral ambiguities notwithstanding) had this task not also made him so busy that he hadn’t made any more headway on locating Sherlock.  Q felt like a failure.  True, the Holmses were not a particularly functional family, but Q liked to think that they were there for each other when it counted - yet here he was, in the very heart of Eigengrau for over two weeks now, and he hadn’t even _seen_ the form he’d come to rescue.  

It didn’t help that Q’s last high-Pass agent to see was Agent 004 - the man he’d seen briefly in the hallway his first day in Eigengrau, and who turned out to be much creepier in person.  It had been shocking, really, how normal most Hounds appeared.  Shaw and Reese had both been rather obviously lacking in emotion, but Bond, Hart, and even the cannibal Hannibal Lecter had been downright charming for the most part.  Only Root had come close to being well and truly spine-chilling, but even that had been intermixed with moments of friendliness.  On a logical level, Q knew that it was only a ruse, a clever camouflage on the bodies of apex predators.  Only on Raoul Silva, though, did the monster beneath ooze through so obviously.  

Q had actually met the man just hours previously, while taking a late lunch right before the agent’s designated appointment.  Aware that agents had a nasty habit of being early, if only because this sometimes allowed them to duck their Handlers, the Quartermaster was eating hurriedly so that he could go back.  He’d been alone for once, Tanner and H having abandoned him to his workaholic tendencies and eaten earlier.  They were setting up for the Smartblood transfusion even now.  

“Ahhh, the famous Q!” an almost musical, low voice rang out from behind Q, nearly making the boffin spit out the tea he’d just sipped.  Unbothered, the man went on, “If I had but known, I’d have introduced myself when we first met.  How remiss of me.  You remember me, though, no?”

In his hurry, Q hadn’t really taken stock of the room when he’d entered - he’d gotten so used to eating with the rest of the crowd, with Tanner and H and sometimes Moneypenny, ignoring the room’s more dangerous occupants.  Now he turned around and found the agent he’d first walked by in the hallway looming over him, mouth stretched in an almost unsettlingly broad smile and tell-tale collar glinting past the open top button of his shirt.  Q felt his left hand twitch towards the watch on his other wrist - the watch capable of incapacitating or even killing an agent.  In all honesty, Q had forgotten that it was there most of the time, making it a particularly ineffective form of self-defense, but now the urge to use it was an almost physical tug on his fingertips.  There was just something about 004 that put ice down his back.  If nothing else, the man was the first high-Pass agent to ever leave his assigned table and come this close.  

Silva’s almond-shaped eyes were watching Q’s face, and suddenly the man laughed.  The noise was enough to make Q flinch.  “Oh my - did I scare you?” the man chuckled, expression sliding into something almost - but not quite - sympathetic.  “I assure you, that wasn’t my intention.”

“Wasn’t it?” Q asked back, but his voice sounded stilted and hollow.  He wasn't sure what to do, and could feel a trickle of sweat starting up between his shoulder-blades.  

“Of course not, boy.  What kind of man do you take me for?” was the seemingly offended response, ruined by another burst of chuckling.  Q was beginning to feel as though he was being played with, and as much as he didn’t like it, he couldn’t see a way out of it.  The tables had bench-seating, and Q was presently twisted around awkwardly, legs still under the table and Silva too close behind for Q to back out and get up properly.  Q wanted to turn around and scan the room for assistance, but the instinctive, animal part of his brain told him that if he took his eyes off a predator for so much as three seconds, that predator would attack.  Without turning his head, Q’s peripheral vision was really rather lamentable - still, with what he could see in his range of vision, the tables were empty, except for a few high-Pass agents across the room.  Obviously, they’d be no help, and Q mostly just hoped that they didn’t get it in their heads to join their tall, grinning compatriot.  Before dragging his eyes back up to Silva’s, Q’s eyes caught just momentarily on a familiar blond-haired head, and briefly he was met by watching, pale-blue eyes.  

Then Silva was taking up his attention again, folding his powerful arms behind his back.  Many of the agents, Q had noticed, preferred almost professional dress - again, more camouflage, he reasoned.  They looked like well-dressed men and women, and it made it easier to forget that they were really more akin to steel tigers in silk suits.  Silva was no different, although his present button-down and jacket did little to hide the breadth of his shoulders, or how his height had him towering over his sitting Quartermaster, despite his seemingly harmless posture.  “I just came over to say hello, I assure you.  After all, we’re soon to get to know each other more intimately, aren’t we?”

Startled and suddenly twice as uneasy as before, Q blinked and blurted, “What?” while trying to follow Silva’s line of thought.  

At first, 004’s expression remained neutral, playing at innocent, but then his mouth curled upwards and his eyes narrowed in a lecherous grin.  His words remained coated in a disarming sweetness, though, belying the poison in his eyes, “The Smartblood, Q.  Or had it skipped your mind, hmm?  There’s really no greater intimacy than that, in my humble opinion, and I’m looking forward to getting a feel for your work.”

Q would never have thought that someone could actually make a sexual innuendo out of his Smartblood, and he wasn’t sure whether to be appalled, sick, or just plain shocked.  As it was, he just sat there, still twisted around awkwardly in his seat with the food he’d eaten turning leaden in his stomach.  

“Well then, I suppose I’ll leave you to it then,” Silva dipped in a very shallow bow, still keeping his hands behind his back in a mockery of a military at-ease stance - still playing the gentleman, but clearly not playing it with any real intention of selling the role.  “You’ll see my name under your schedule as ‘Raoul Silva’,” he added, as if Q didn’t already, “Feel free to call me Raoul.  I’ll be seeing you soon.”  With a mocking little wave, Silva turned on his heel and glided out of the room, as cocky as a morning rooster.  Q was left sitting and shaking, unsure whether he was more angry or afraid - he’d just been toyed with like a mouse by a cat, and hadn’t even had it in him to do anything about it.  By now, he could see that guards were coming up from behind him, rounding the table hesitantly, so that was probably the only reason that Silva had left in the first place.  

Across the room, Bond put down his utensils, finished eating even though his plate was still half full.  As the guards stationed at the kitchen - newbies, still fresh to Eigengrau and slow to react - began crowding around Q and asking if he was all right, 007 slipped out of the mess hall in Silva’s wake.  

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might take awhile for Hannibal to collect, but you can bet he won't forget that little debt Bond owes him... unless me, the author, forgets, which is sadly possible XD This is why I need to be careful with complicated fics like this...
> 
> Also, many and belated thanks to my beta-reading team - I finally realized that I need a whole pack of editors when I'm writing this much in one month ^_^ So if you know [Springbok](http://archiveofourown.org/users/springbok7),[ 00QEros](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dassandre/pseuds/00QEros), or the lovely [DoraTLG](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DoraTLG) (whom I also had the pleasure of co-writing with), give them all your praise and hugs!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q meets Silva for real this time. But the meeting doesn't quite go as expected, namely because a certain other Hound has decided to crash the party...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might be another few days before more posting occurs - I'm traveling on my yearly visit to see family, most of whom do no have wifi. But this will give my wonderful betas time to catch up, and then you'll all get lots of lovely chapters (without errors).

“Mr. Q, are you feeling all right?” asked H, his usual professionalism softening to a tone of gentle concern.  

Q had just arrived at his branch, and had immediately taken a seat, plucked his glasses off, and given his eyes a good hard rub.  His heart was still pounding from running into Agent Silva, and it was like his entire digestive system was in knots.  “Nothing,” he started, talking into his palms, then added more reluctantly, “I ran into 004 at the mess hall.  Nothing happened, and he was polite, but apparently I’m not used to talking to high-Pass agents.”  It wasn’t the entire truth, but it was all he could think to say.  After all, Silva _had_ been well behaved, at least in the most basic sense - and Q didn’t think that he could explain the bone-deep anxiety that he’d felt with the man smiling down on him like a bipedal viper.  

As of yet, Q hadn’t asked why H limped, but today the older man was moving around fairly well, and therefore shuffled up easily enough to put a hand on Q’s shoulder.  “Dealing with Hounds is never easy,” he said solemnly but kindly, “even with the best of them.”  H hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision.  There was no one near enough to eavesdrop, but H still spoke more cautiously than before, his voice not one to carry, “I’m sure that you’ve noticed how Mr. Reese and I work together?”

Q dropped his hands back to his lap, glancing up at H’s face without putting his glasses back on.  H was close enough that Q could read his expression even without his spectacles, a look of wariness mixed with something else on his professorial face.  Realizing he had to say something, Q admitted carefully, “I might have noticed that he responded very naturally to you.”

“Well, there was a time when I was as afraid of Mr. Reese as I am now of Miss Root,” H explained.  It called to mind the day when Root, 009, had come in - H had made himself as scarce as possible, but his fear had been transparent nonetheless.  Root had seemed to feed off it, all smiles and razor-sharp eyes.  “You quickly learn, though, that not all fear is bad - because while I still wouldn’t ever want to be in a room alone with Root, I’ve come to realize that despite his Psychopass, Reese is not ultimately a bad person, at least so far as I am concerned.”  H squeezed Q’s shoulder with one hand and reached out with the other to coax Q into putting his glasses back on, the gesture comfortingly paternal somehow.  “I’m not saying that you should trust Mr. Reese, but I _am_ saying your job is to find out which agents you can trust, which you can tolerate, and which you should avoid at all costs.  You’ll find men and women for each of those categories, I assure you,” he said with a small, wry smile.  

The brief speech had Q relaxing a bit, if only because H’s calm was infectious, as was the tiniest glint of whimsy in H’s usually serious eyes.  However, just as Q smiled back, the door banged open, and two of the agents tentatively on Q’s ‘Avoid At All Costs’ list came in - escorted by at least eight guards.  Q stood instantly, unable to comprehend what he was seeing: James Bond and Raoul Silva, each handcuffed and clearly fresh from a fight.

Silva and James looked a bit worse for wear, but the latter was grinning, all bloodied teeth.  It was hard to tell if he’d cut his lip, or if the redness was just from his nose, which was dripping blood all the way down his chin.  Silva, whom Q had been expecting, did not appear to have come voluntarily - and he most certainly did not look as cock-sure and posh as he had back at the mess hall.  He had the start of a fresh bruise around his right eye, and Q could practically see it starting to swell, and his previously pristine button-down and jacket were rumpled.  James, if Q recalled correctly, had been wearing a shirt and jacket similar to Silva’s at lunch, but was lacking the latter article now - although he didn’t seem bothered by that.  When Silva snarled something at Bond, too low and animal for Q to discern, James just volleyed back blithely, “Oh, stop being such a pansy, Silva.  I barely even hit you.”

The guards immediately ganged up on the two high-Pass agents to enforce silence, and while Silva acquiesced with a snarl, James gave in with another easy (but thankfully close-lipped, reddened teeth disappearing) smile.  The latter agent caught Q’s eyes and the smile grew roguish, and Bond flashed the dark-haired boffin a wink.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?” Q belatedly demanded, recalling that he was in charge of this branch… and whatever chaos got dragged into it.  

“We caught these two trying to rip each other apart in the halls just down the east corridor,” the nearest guard explained.  With seven of his fellows holding the agents in place, he seemed to feel safe turning his attention to the Quartermaster.  The guard continued to obediently explain, “004’s Handler has been paged, but apparently she was scheduled to meet her agent here anyway at 4:00, so we brought him here.”

“And Bond?” Q asked tensely.  He felt like a cat that had been doused in water, and was struggling to stay fluffed up and threatening.  

In lieu of an immediate response, the guard Q was questioning  reached over, past the restraining arms of his fellows, and gripped Bond’s hair.  The agent bared his teeth again as his head was drawn back, revealing, Q saw, a heavily battered collar.  Around the collar and up and down Bond’s neck were bruises, some of them obviously hand-shaped.  “Silva damaged his collar,” the guardsman explained with only a modicum of interest, “He was probably trying to trigger the kill-mechanism and remove 007 permanently, but he didn’t manage it.  Still, the collar needs fixing, and that's your department now.”  

When he let go of Bond’s short blond hair, the agent dropped his head forward again with a grimace, but otherwise didn’t get too riled.  If anything, Q thought that the agent was taking this quite well, which urged him to ask slowly, “Do they do this often?”  He directed a finger between 004 and 007 in particular.  

It seemed that many of the guards didn’t know, as they exchanged glances and shrugged; Q didn’t recognize most of their faces, and recalled that a new batch had just come in.  The same fellow who had been speaking this whole time, however, answered without trouble, “Usually it’s Bond and Hart you have to watch out for.  I’m not sure why Silva attacked-”

“ _I_ didn’t attack him,” Silva interrupted, clearly furious, his voice a loud snarl.  He jerked against the hands restraining him again, and actually managed to drag the guards a half-pace closer to 007.  Q tensed, not only because of how intimidating Silva’s show of strength was, but because 007’s tolerantly playful eyes suddenly became as cold as freon and his smile froze in place.  “ _He_ attacked _me_ ,” Silva finished frustratedly, and the only reason Q believed him was because the big man looked so honestly confused - a look that Q didn’t think was normal for such a egotistical individual.  Silva was looking at Bond like 007 had just transformed into a serpent and no one else could see it.

For his part, 007 had put his devil-may-care mask back in place, the glimpse of merciless cold once again buried.  “Are you sure about that, Silva?  Seems you’re the one who tried to have me killed.”

“You filthy, lying-!”

“And here I thought you liked me.”

“I’m going to remove your head from your shoulders.”

“I guess the wedding’s off then?”

The banter devolved into Silva very nearly frothing with rage, and somewhere within the chaos that followed, Silva was strapped into the chair much as 007 had been for his own injection of Smartblood.  It took more than half the guards to do it, so it was perhaps fortunate that 007 was as mild as a lamb the whole time, allowing himself to be walked over to another chair.  This chair wasn’t nailed down, so the three guards looked a bit unsure what to do, and ultimately just ended up hooking a spare cuff through the chain between Bond’s cuffs and around the back of the aluminum chair.  James could still get up and run off, but he’d have to do it with his hands still behind his back and a chair as deadweight behind him.  Bond smiled at them as if they were waiters seating him at a restaurant, all the while Silva went absolutely animal in the background.  

A full ten minutes later and the two agents were situated, and the fury had finally burned itself out, more or less.  Silva’s panting was the only sound in the entire room, and a few of the newer guards were giving away just how green they were by the shaky, shocked looks on their faces.  All of the Q-branch denizens were subtly hiding, and even H had taken refuge behind a bank of computers.  Q found himself in the position of being the only non-military unit standing.  “Well then,” he said, trying to infuse some semblance of professionalism into the situation.  He straightened out his latest cardigan with a little tug.  “That was an absolute shitload of unnecessary excitement.”  Okay, maybe perfect professionalism was too much to ask for just now.  “I hope you’re both very proud of yourselves.”

Although Q had looked at both 004 and 007, he finished his statement focussing on the latter, letting his eyes weigh on him most heavily - making it clear that he knew who the true culprit was.  In response, all Bond did was grin broadly, as pleased with himself as a devil on God’s throne.  “As a peacock,” Bond shamelessly replied.  

Resisting the urge to either roll his eyes or just skip right to banging his head against a wall, Q turned back to Silva.  004 had apparently seen Q’s particular focus on James as the guilty party and, unexpectedly, that seemed to have softened his mood significantly.  The large, pale-haired man relaxed a bit and even managed an ingratiating smile of his own.  “I suppose this means you’ll pencil me in early?” Silva dared to ask.  

Q sighed, then turned to H and beckoned for the Smartblood.  “One of these days I’ll actually do this with a Handler present, and everything will go smoothly,” he muttered to himself.  No one responded, and a few of the guards even looked a bit sorry for him.  Everyone got out of his way, however, as he moved between tables and consoles, ultimately approaching Silva after he realised he couldn’t stall any longer.  Fortunately, the stalling had given him time to collect his nerve again, and he had to admit - Agent Silva was much easier to face when his every limb was restrained and his right eye was swelling shut.  007 clearly had a mean left hook.  

“So,” Silva started making conversation as Q slipped the ampule of nanites into its slot, “aren’t you going to tell me about your clever little invention, Q dear?  James may have crashed the party, but I’m still very interested.”

Oh, Silva looked interested all right, but Q didn’t really think it was in the Smartblood.  The man’s gaze was like a physical touch, and it skated up and down Q’s frame when the young man came close to do his work.  

“Don’t let him butter you up, Q,” James called from across the room.  Silva’s ingratiating look immediately became an eviscerating glare against which Bond appeared utterly immune.  “He just wants to be the only agent in Eigengrau running around without Smartblood.”

“Don’t pretend to know my intentions,” Silva snapped.  When the guards began to get restless again, however, the big agent subsided with a stymied look.  Surprisingly, 007 let the conversation drop, too, though Q wasn’t really sure why - the three men guarding 007 hadn’t made any moves towards him because Bond was at least acting calm, so conceivably 007 could have retorted with impunity.  And yet, the moment Silva shut his mouth, James subsided as well with a small, Cheshire smile.  

Silva tried to chat up Q a few more times, but James kept interrupting.  

Q-branch’s main door opened again, and Q was too busy refereeing James and Silva’s latest verbal joust to look.  He heard H greet, however, “Hello, Ms. Severine.  We’ll have your agent back to you in just a moment.”  If this was Silva’s Handler, then in Q’s opinion she already had a lot to answer for, but H was treating her with surprising kindness - almost gently.  She’d failed to keep her agent in check twice so far (once in the mess hall and once in the corridors with James), but H didn’t sound chastising.  

Q understood why a moment later when he glanced back, taking in a clearly stressed but devastatingly gorgeous woman (tanned skin, mink-brown hair, accented with dark lipstick and eyeliner, and a body full of curves that Q would have appreciated more if he were straight).  There was something harried in her eyes, and, at first, Q thought that hers was the face of a woman who’d just been told that she’d failed at her one and only job: babysitting a high-Pass agent.  However, that spark in her eyes flared to something that was almost fear the second Silva spoke.  “Ahhh, _meu docinho,_ ” 004 practically purred, the voice raising the hairs on Q’s nape instantly, “How nice of you to show up.  This will save me the trouble of hunting you down.”

The unnecessary emphasis on ‘hunting you down’ made Silva’s Handler freeze in place, and suddenly all of the usual safety checks for the Smartblood seemed inconsequential.  Q hit the ‘inject’ button without further hesitation, turning and stalking away as Silva roared in surprised pain.  He tried to hide his own thunderously angry expression by working on the nearest computer, ostensibly to check the Smartblood readings like he always did, but then he realized that 007 had been ensconced nearby.  Q tried to ignore the blue-eyed man, sitting closely to his left, although he could tell the man was silently watching him.  “Mr. Silva is free to go,” Q stated coldly, and found that his next words spun themselves almost magically out of thin air once he started talking, “Since he’s suspected of trying to murder 007, I’d recommend putting him away for a while, if only to prevent more violence.  I presume that’s protocol when a high-Pass agent gets violent?”

While Silva stared at Q in shock, as if he hadn’t expected the skinny boffin to suddenly grow a spine, the guards started mumbling explanations.  Q ignored them, letting his eyes - which were apparently quite forceful - do the talking, and soon the mumbles had a distinctly compliant ring to them.  “Good.  Remove him, please.  Ms. Severine, if you’d stay a moment, I’d like to show you how the Smartblood works.  I’m sure the guards can handle your agent a moment longer,” Q softened his tone as a little as he addressed the woman.  He did his best to give all Handlers a quick tutorial on the system, should they need to access stats about their agents, but to be honest, usually he didn’t stress the need for such a talk - he’d be monitoring all the agents anyway, and Hannibal and James didn’t even have Handlers at the moment.  But right now, he had the strong urge to keep Silva and his Handler apart a bit longer.  

Ms. Severine looked between Q and her agent for a moment, but when the guards blocked her view (surrounding Silva to get him safely unlocked from the chair), her attention turned back to the former and her willowy body seemed to relax.  She nodded, and for the next twenty minutes, stood silently and attentively by Q’s side as he briefed her.  Q wasn’t sure if he liked her or not - she had a pleasant, smoky voice with an exotic accent he couldn’t place, but didn’t reveal much about herself when she talked - but he sure as hell pitied her.  

Eventually she left, saying she’d just gotten a page - her agent was in Holding, a location where Hounds were left to cool their heels after violent incidents.  Only after the woman had sashayed away (Q could just imagine Silva’s eyes on her, eating up that hip-swaying walk, and it made the boffin sick to think about it) did the Quartermaster take a deep breath, cross his arms, and turn to 007.  There were only two guards left in the room, and they jumped a bit at the realization that they weren’t invisible anymore, but James merely pasted on a charming smile and tipped one elegantly shod foot back and forth.  “You,” Q said, accusing.

“Me,” James acknowledged, cheekily.  God, Q wanted to murder him.  

“If I dismiss these two nice guards, will you behave?” Q asked.  The guards immediately exchanged looks, flummoxed and perhaps worried.

007’s arctic-blue eyes danced with interest, and his smile turned a bit more introspective.  He actually seemed to think about it a moment, cocking his head to one side and regarding Q with clear interest.  “Will this collar _accidentally_ kill me while you’re fixing it?” James asked cannily, tipping his head back to give Q another look at the battered piece of metal (Silva had really done a number on it), and also the strong, tanned column of Bond’s bruised throat.

“I have no interest in killing you, if that’s what you’re asking,” Q said truthfully, candidly, his earlier, impulsive thoughts notwithstanding.  “But these guards have better things to do with their time than get in my way while I work, so I’d much prefer your word that you’ll not give me any trouble in their absence.”

“I can’t tell if you’re brave or stupid,” said one of the guards unexpectedly, and Q gave the man a peevish look for interrupting.  He looked back down at the sound of Bond’s low chuckle, which was a beautiful and dark sound.  

“Done.  If you’re willing to make a deal with the devil, the least the devil can do is honor it,” 007 said with the same smile the snake in Eden had probably worn.  It was almost scarier than all of the stories of Hannibal’s cannibalism, and the only thing that kept Q from changing his mind and saying ‘NOPE’ to all of this was the undeniable look of _curiosity_ in James’s eyes.  

Right now, Q was depending upon that curiosity, because he had a feeling that James wouldn’t hurt him so long as the agent still had more questions than answers about his new Quartermaster.  

A compromise was reached - the guards went to stand against the wall, out of the way but within range of sight.  They kept glancing back as if expecting James to leap upon Q the second they were out of arm’s reach, but all 007 did was slouch more comfortably against the chair, shifting his weight as he readjusted his bound hands behind him.  Blue eyes flickered from the guards, to H (whose eyes Q was avoiding, because he knew that practical little man was staring at him in blank horror), and ultimately back to Q.  Pretending not to notice the scrutiny, Q murmured, “Let me get my tools,” and surreptitiously watched to see if James would try to enact any kind of escape while no one was watching him.  Again, nothing.  James seemed supremely comfortable for a bruised man in handcuffs.  

Box of tools settled on the floor next to him, Q dragged up a chair facing the agent, determined to do three things: his job, obviously - keep his cool - and get a few answers out of this man.  “Let me get a look at the damage,” Q requested, holding his breath even as the agent complied with a whimsical little smile.  The truly terrifying part was leaning in close, reaching his own hands towards the damaged torc, and realizing that he could smell 007’s aftershave and feel some of his radiant body heat.  Q had one knee slipped in between Bond’s legs, to get close enough to work, and he didn’t notice until their thighs briefly brushed.  James’s mouth kicked up on one side, his only acknowledgement of the contact, while Q fought an involuntary blush.  “So Agent Silva just came out of the blue and did this to you, eh?” Q asked in a dry and disbelieving tone, “Damage like this takes a lot of rage.  Do you have any idea what you might have done to make Silva so spectacularly angry with you?”

“I’m told I have an infuriating personality.”

Q huffed, amused despite himself.  “I won’t argue with you on that.  Stop it-”  James had started lowering his head, no doubt to get a better look at Q’s expression, or to get on more even footing; Q nudged his chin back up.  “-I’m still working.  You got yourself into this mess, and I can only get you out of it if you let me.”

“I thought you and I agreed that Silva got _me_ into this mess, by shamelessly attacking me without provocation,” James teased.  He sounded entirely amused, but did indeed bare his neck again.  Something about the easy vulnerability of it made Q shiver.  

This time Q snorted an indelicate laugh while slowly turning the collar for a better look at its entire circumference.  “If anyone believes that,” Q muttered, already getting distracted by work, “then they must know you even less than I do, and I’ve only been here since the first of the month.  H, do we have the authority to remove these collars?” Q switched his focus and called past Bond’s shoulder, “I know we have the means, and I’m not going to be able to fix this while it’s still around his neck.”

H’s eyes were narrowed.  “I don’t know if that’s wise.”

“Wise or not, it’s necessary.  Silva didn’t set off any of the collar’s offensive mechanisms, but only barely, and I don’t want to risk triggering them myself.”  Q kept his attention on H even as 007’s head lowered, once again fixing Q with the full force of his intense and quiet scrutiny.  That somehow made the rest of Bond ten times more real, a mass of muscle and bone within touching distance, only held in check by two sets of handcuffs and a flimsy promise.  He suddenly wished he’d read James’s file in more depth.  

Still not happy, H nonetheless said that he’d contact M, making sure they had the go-ahead.  Q, meanwhile, sat back with a sigh and waited.  James’s interested gaze immediately caught him.  “When you say ‘we have the means,’ you really mean _you_ , don’t you?” he asked unexpectedly in a soft murmur.

Q tried not to look surprised, but he couldn’t help glancing around to see if anyone else had heard the accusation.  James had been quiet, though, and no one else was within hearing range.  Folding his hands primly in his lap, Q tried to look nonchalant and probably failed.  “I can’t discuss that with you.”

“Not even a little bit?” James pressed, all charm again.  He nudged Q’s ankle with the toe of his shoe, the sensation not unlike the playful butt of a cat’s head against Q’s trouser-leg.  

“I’m pretty sure that sharing information like that would get me fired.  Besides, you seem to get around your collar often enough anyway.”

“Maybe, but I can’t get if _off_ ,” James countered, for the first time sounding frustrated.  He controlled it quickly, though, after just a brief frown.

And that led to the first question still burning in Q’s mind, as it had been ever since he’d run into Bond in the computer lab.  The Quartermaster leaned forward over his knees, furrowing his brows and watching as James did the same, suspicious now.  “Tell me,” Q asked, keeping his own voice low so as not to carry, “Did you disable your collar because you were bored, or just to prove that you could do it?”

It was clear by the flash of Bond’s eyes that he immediately knew what Q was talking about.  Unfortunately, instead of giving a straight answer, he cast Q a shit-eating grin and replied, “ _Por qué no las dos_?”

“You’re infuriating.  I can’t believe I didn’t just turn you in immediately that night.”

Disconcertingly, James immediately replied, “The feeling’s mutual.”

Q realized that he’d backed himself into a corner with this conversation, without really learning much, so he pursed his lips and changed tactics.  “Fine, touche.  How about why you attacked Silva then?  Another case of boredom and proving a point?”  

This time, James shifted his weight a little, and then slowly sat up from his slouch.  His hands were still behind his back, but just like Silva’s posture back at lunch, all that seemed to do was make his shoulders look broader, his chest more pronounced with its spots of blood drying a darker color on the white material.  Q had nearly forgotten about Bond’s bloody nose, the flow of red having stopped and dried and flaked, but now as the agent smiled crookedly from a closer distance, Q was mesmerized by the trail of rusty red smudged across the man’s mouth and chin.  James seemed significantly larger and taller when he wasn’t slouching.  “Would you rather I let him come in here, alone, as he'd planned?” Bond asked in a low, smooth murmur.  When Q’s eyebrows jumped upward in surprise, 007’s smile just got more lopsided and wry, and he finished, “I’m not a good man, Q - but I’m not the worst one in here.”

Before Q could respond, or demand to know what the bloody hell 007 meant by that, H called out from his computer console, “M replied.  We’re good to go, if you still insist on taking 007’s collar off.  We’ve been requested to restrain him a little bit better first, however.”  

“I… uh… of course,” Q stuttered, still off-balance.  He almost forgot to move, only realizing at the last minute that his and 007’s legs were close enough together that his were probably in danger of being cuffed along with Bond’s.  He hadn’t noticed that he was sitting quite that close, and only once he stood up and backed off did his stomach do an unsettled lurch.  He’d been all but in the lap of a man with a kill list as long as Q’s arm.  

Q managed to pull himself out of his own morbid, slightly horrified thoughts in time to see James tensing up, facing the oncoming guards and increased restraints with a look like a growing storm.  “Your word, 007,” he reminded sharply.  At first, he wasn’t sure he was in time - promise to behave or no, James was clearly tensing for a fight, having strong instincts against being overpowered.  Q couldn’t really blame him.  If he’d spent the past few years of his life not only locked up but also collared with a device that could kill or incapacitate him, his every move now monitored, Q would have fought for every ounce of autonomy he could get.  

Fortunately, at Q’s sharp tone - which had risen in pitch, embarrassingly, but at least hadn’t cracked - Bond’s eyes flashed Q’s way and he arrested his motions.  His eyes were like a winter sky, dispassionate and cold, unsettlingly so, but his frown was real enough as he took Q’s words into consideration and then visibly forced himself to relax.  The two guards moved in and swiftly, efficiently cuffed Bond’s ankles to the chair-legs.  He could probably still get free of those, if he tipped the chair over, but hopefully Bond’s promise to not commit violence would be enough.  

H came over with a small device that looked like nothing so much as a thumb-drive.  “This is the electronic key for the collars, one of three in Eigengrau.  You plug it into a computer like any other flashdrive, and it prompts you to enter the necessary access codes.  M remotely entered his, and I coded it for 007’s collar in particular.  Now, just putting it in close proximity should disarm and open the collar.”  He handed it over to Q reluctantly.  “It’s only good for one use, and then you have to plug it in and repeat the process.  It’s inefficient by design.”

Q took it, looking at how innocuous and simple the object appeared.  Then he guessed, “And you’re also going to tell me that you still think that this is a bad idea?”

Watching 007 and not Q, his expression shuttered, H murmured back, “I don’t think it needs repeating.”  However, he then added, tone going grave, “I witnessed 007 kill his last Handler, Mr. Q.  Ms. Lynd had been told the same story that Tanner told you, that 007 sleeps with women and kills men, but it’s not that simple, and it’s definitely not that sexist.  007 is, simply put, unpredictable.  I still don’t know why he turned so suddenly on Ms. Lynd, but I’ve certainly never seen him regret it.”  

That new information added another layer to 007, and Q’s hand tightened spasmodically around the little unlocking device.  The guards were backing away again, assured that 007 was as secure as they could make him.  “Oddly enough,” Q said to H, a bit breathlessly, “that doesn’t make me any more scared of him than I already was.”  And with that, Q strode forward, unlocking device in hand and his heart lodged suffocatingly high in his throat.  

An unsettlingly steady pair of blue eyes watched him, and it felt a lot like approaching a poised bird of prey.  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Q felt driven to say, as he inspected the collar, seeing a point at its back where the metal seemed fused - closer inspection showed a complicated, locked grid, like many geared teeth clenched together.  Short of a chainsaw, there would be no way to get out of a collar like this without the key Q held.  

“That’s good to know,” James tossed back offhandedly, but with an undercurrent of menace that was as subtle as sarin gas, “because people have tried that before, and generally not lived long enough to regret it.  I’d hate to add you to the list.”  

Q shivered, but he had the guts to grip the collar very carefully in one hand.  He noticed that James turned his head, but was watching Q’s wrist most of all - the wrist with the watch on it, with its dangerous little buttons.  If Q made a move towards those buttons, there was no doubt that James would react.  “I’m not sure whether I find that comforting or not,” Q admitted a bit shakily.  

Bond grunted, perhaps accepting that the line between advice and threat was a bit grey in this case.  The agent let out a little breath as if surprised, however, when Q touched the electronic key to Bond’s collar and the metal unlatched with an audible _click_.  Q removed it and was met by Bond’s suspicious and questioning eyes as he walked away with the device.  Meeting that gaze, Q said simply, “If I said I was going to fix this, then that’s what I intend to do.  There’s no subtext.”

“There’s always subtext,” James argued, eyes and voice becoming dark and jaded with knowledge.  

Considering what 007 had caught him doing during their first meeting, perhaps James was right.  Q tried not to look guilty or suspicious, even as he chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, regarding the collar in his hands.  It was dented and even slightly bent in places, and looking back, Q could see where it had dug into James’s neck.  “Perhaps you’re right, but not everything beneath the surface is a threat to _you_ ,” he argued, and dearly hoped that _that_ subtext would get through to James.  Because yes, as 007 suspected, there was more to Q that met the eye - but it wouldn’t affect the agent, and therefore didn’t make Q the enemy.  

Perhaps it worked, because 007 didn’t say anything more.  He stretched his neck a little bit, grimacing as he no doubt felt the many bruises, but ultimately he seemed to relax when he realized that the metal loop was gone for now.  Q wondered what that felt like - to be rid of a collar you’d worn for years.  When was the last time James had had it removed?  Lost in those thoughts, troubled by them, Q bent to work, dragging his tools away from James and over to the nearest workbench.  It was only a few metres away from the restrained agent, and Q was soon too absorbed in his work to realize that the agent watched him keenly the entire time.  

H, across the way, looked worried.  

Of course, everyone got worried when alarms suddenly started going off.  They sounded different from the first time, but Q hadn’t familiarized himself with all of the alarms.  Still working on Bond’s collar, removing the broken pieces and triaging the damage, Q looked up, demanding, “What’s going on?”

In answer, a voice sounded like magic through the building-wide intercom: “There has been an incident in the West Wing, Section 5.  All Handlers are to secure their agents, call in with their positions, and await further instructions there.  Unattached agents are to be detained, by force if necessary.”  James looked temporarily nervous, but apparently everyone there thought he was detained enough - one of the guards called it in while the intercom kept broadcasting in harsh, tinny tones.  “Mr. Will Graham, report to the West Wing, Section 5, maintenance room 2, immediately.  Should anyone see Agent 003, he is to be detained at all costs and treated as a threat.”

“003, that’s…?”  Q recalled, his brain a bit slow after all of the excitement of the day, this new, amorphous danger scrambling his thoughts.

“Hannibal,” James supplied grimly.  

“He doesn’t have a Handler,” Q recalled.  “Is that why?”

“They’re singling him out in particular?” H interrupted unexpectedly.  If anything, his voice was more solemn than 007’s, and everyone turned to look at the sparse little man.  Unflinchingly, H finished, “No, I rather doubt that.  If they’re sending out orders like this and warnings as well, then it means that Agent 003 has most likely done something.  Something horrible.”  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, Hannibal and Will are going to get a bit more famous (or infamous) in following chapters... ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's been a murder, and Will Graham is called in to profile. Things are not as they seem, however. 
> 
> On another note, Q is still dealing with James and a few secrets of his own...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FOUND WIFI AT ONE OF MY RELATIVE'S PLACES!!! I won't have it for long - but I got it long enough to post stuff! ^_^

~^~

Two days.  Two days were all Will had got before they’d found a crime-scene for him to look at.  Those two days had barely been enough to plough through the files for the most dangerous of the high-Pass agents, and it felt like his brain was on fire, overworked, and crammed full of information that he’d sooner have cremated than remembered.  

“This is Captain Connor White.  Or was…” someone explained to Will, as the profiler stepped into maintenance room 2 and fixed his eyes on what was left of Captain White.  “He was one of our chopper pilots.  Damn, people are going to miss him.  He wasn’t friendly or anything, but he was a decent poker player in his downtime.”  There were other forensic experts flitting about the room, but Will’s mind was already unwillingly locking on the details: the room was large for a maintenance room, and seemed larger with everything pushed against the walls, leaving the body of a middle-aged, balding man prominently in the middle.  “We always keep five pilots on staff - enough to fly every chopper if necessary, but not enough loose hands running around for uppity agents to target.  The higher-ups are going to have to scramble to fill the gap now, with White gone.”  There was blood everywhere, and White’s bare chest revealed that his torso was split cleanly from throat to belt.  Gutted.  “Your paperwork says that you specialize in this sort of thing, that you’re a prodigy at crime scenes or something.”

“I’m a profiler,” Will finally responded, padding a bit closer, careful not to disrupt or touch anything.  His stomach did a little flip, something between fear and sick anticipation taking hold of him as his damned brain began to suck in details greedily.  “I learn about the killer by looking at their work.”

“Well, sorry to break it to you, but this is more a courtesy call than anything else,” the other man replied, and only then did Will drag his attention away from the corpse to stare at his companion, confused.  The speaker was another guard, but he was dressed a bit finer, carried himself with more authority.  Someone higher up the food-chain, then.  

“I beg your pardon?” Will blinked, frowned.  

The guardsman tipped a stubbled chin towards the corpse and said easily, “One of our guys beat you here and already took a peek inside the body - there’s nothing in there.  The killer took the organs, and we’ve only got one guy in this place with that kind of signature.”  The guardsman’s pager beeped, and he pulled it close to his face to read something on it, then smiled grimly, “And the kitchen just confirmed it.”

“Confirmed what?” Will asked, growing suspicious.  He had a feeling where this was going - but he also had a profile building like a monster in his head that was pulling him in another direction.

“They found the captain’s missing organs in the kitchen.  Now, maybe lots of high-Pass agents would gut a man, but there’s only one who’d take those innards to the kitchen like they were prime cuts for eating,” the guardsman explained, belatedly starting to look a bit queasy.  Anyone within hearing range of his brassy voice was looking green, too.  Still, his voice was jadedly triumphant as he concluded, “003.  Hannibal the Cannibal.  Heaven Almighty, I hope they finally put him down for this one.  I don’t care how useful he is.”

“You might want to rethink that,” Will said, recalling a beat late, “sir.”  Uncomfortable with the social situation, Will blinked rapidly and turned his attention back to the corpse, beginning to release the white-knuckled control he kept on his thoughts.  Like some sort of tentacled creature, he felt his mind instantly start reaching out, touching, grabbing.  “Because Hannibal didn’t do this.”

The guard escorting Will scoffed.  “Oh really?  How’d you figure.”

“Well, for starters, this line is too ragged, too imprecise,” Will crouched down by the body, pointing towards the eviscerating cut without touching it.  He felt his mind sidle up close to the facts, subsuming them.  ‘ _You are what you eat_.’  As Will Graham began to slip away, suddenly, the sight before him wasn’t grotesque anymore.  He was vaguely aware that he was still speaking.  “All of Hannibal’s files showed great precision, and that he’s practiced medicine, so he has a skill with knives and an understanding of the body that he hasn’t let slide over the years.  That’s not what I’m seeing here.”  Will’s brain finally fully engaged, and it was like a flim was peeled off his eyes, revealing everything more clearly.  He backed up the scene in his head, staring fixedly as he imagined the blood cascading back into the body, revealing tanned skin beneath, thick body-hair.  Ah.  Bruises around the throat, no longer hidden by the smears of blood…

The more Will watched, the more relaxed he became, a seasoned calm above a mass of adrenaline, like a seagull above a dark sea.  “I’ve killed before,” he heard himself say, calm.  He can feel it now, imagine it.  The doorknob beneath his gloved hand, the image of Captain White entering just ahead of him.  “I manipulated Captain White to get him here; the location, the timing, was important to me.  Captain White never saw my face, though.  He never saw me at all.”  The seagull-above-the-sea sensation was tested as Will felt a surge of adrenaline, a rush of viciousness that made his mouth carve out a smile.  White was in front of him, back turned, just a bit shorter than him - the perfect height to hook an arm around his throat.  The movement felt easy and natural.  “I suffocated him to death, a practiced, professional move.  I try to stay in practice, which is easier to do than you might imagine.  Captain White is a heavy man, but easy to control after I’ve locked my arms around his head and throat.”  Will counted his own heartbeats, knowing how long he had to hold the suffocating arm-lock after the captain stopped moving.  He counted the beats like steps on a path, walking from consciousness, to unconsciousness, to death.  

“Efficiency is most important to me.”  In the pseudo-memory, Will lowered the body quickly, not so much cushioning its fall as guiding it to the ground without wasting time or making undue noise.  “I’m not compassionate. This is a task.  No… a job.”  That sounded more right in Will’s mouth, and he ran a tongue across his teeth before nodding and moving on.  He felt the weight of a combat knife in his hand.  “But I’ve never gutted a man before - not outside the heat of the moment, at least.  I’ve seen combat.  I’ve killed in ways that even I can’t remember.”  Will took a deep breath, let it out, as the killer had done.  He sank deeper into that very same killer.  He felt how the knife made quick work of the captain’s clothing, parting cloth to get at flesh, although the work after that was harder.  “I’m not squeamish, but this isn’t how I’d make a kill-”

A hand clamping on Will’s shoulder dragged him back to reality so fast that he felt whiplash, and it was like being hurled off a rollercoaster.  He gasped, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden vertigo.  The sensation of shedding the killer was like sloughing off a second skin, leaving him feeling naked and raw underneath it.  

The same guard who’d so blithely discussed the crime scene just moments before - or had it been hours? - now looked parchment white and was holding Will at arm’s-length as if he might be contagious.  “What the bloody hell was that?” the man gasped.

Now that he was back to himself again, Will felt like he was going to be sick.  He had a high tolerance for gore, blood, and death simply from being in law enforcement for so long, but that was different than spending time in a killer’s head.  This killer had tenfold the tolerance that Will did, but now that the afterimage of that callousness wasn’t protecting him, Will had room to be horrified by the impressions still left in his head.  “Sorry - sorry,” he gasped, off-balance and starting to shake.  He looked at Captain White again and saw him whole, bloodless - until the skin of his belly peeled back magically like a chrysalis opening, and his intestines began to slither out of their own accord.  Will lurched clumsily to his feet even as the hallucination faded, leaving a bloodied, cooling corpse once again.  

“I’m all right,” he gasped as the guardsman’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and it was a pleasant surprise when the man let go.  Will reflected that this was one of the worst episodes he’d had in awhile; usually, when he put himself in the killer’s shoes, the scene played itself out in his head, but he wasn’t an active player.  Judging by everyone’s reactions, however, Will had been talking aloud.  It was a miracle that he wasn’t being arrested right now.  “I was…  That’s just how I work.”

“Talking about how you killed someone?” the guardsman asked, dumbfounded and obviously disturbed.

“No!”  Will shook his head emphatically, then rubbed at his temple.  Damn, but his head hurt now.  It felt exactly as if he’d just stuffed a whole new person’s-worth of thought into his head, and now it was too crowded inside his skull.  It got worse every time Will did this.  Grimacing in frustration, Will squeezed his eyes shut against the pressure-headache and tried to make himself understood, “This isn’t how I could kill someone - this is how your killer actually murdered Captain White.”  He admitted, grudgingly, “Maybe I’m wrong on a few details, but I can tell you one thing.  Your agent, Hannibal Lecter, didn’t do this.”

“The young man is quite correct.”

Everyone but Will spun at the sound of the voice, and there was a brief eruption of shouting and even the sounds of guns being drawn.  Will, his knees just about to buckle from the pain in his head, was slower to react, but at least the sudden hubbub hid the small whimper of pain he couldn’t contain.  The emotional dissonance wasn’t helping, either, and he fought the simultaneous urges to laugh and to vomit.  He could still feel the detached surge of adrenalin, of excitement, as he… no, as the _killer…_ stalked up behind the captain and took him down before he could even know what hit him.  It was enough to make Will want to crawl into his bed and not leave it for days.  Therefore, it was only after a moment that Will lifted his head, focusing clumsily in the direction everyone else was looking, while at the same time being meticulously careful not to make eye-contact with anyone.  Eye-contact was the quickest way to kick his empathy into high-gear again, and right now, that sounded like torture.  

So, without meeting any eyes, Will glanced over to see a new figure standing in the doorway.  The man was dressed in a sweater, a dark gold color that reminded Will of beaten gold and old wheat, wrapped around a powerful body that was not dissimilar to the build of most of the guardsmen, but still stood out somehow.  Even without meeting the man’s eyes, Will’s raw empathy was still reaching out, touching, consuming.  He could read by the man’s posture more than by his dress that he wasn’t military, but was still dangerous.  Curious now despite himself, Will looked a bit more in quick snatches, seeing a calm, weathered face with prominent cheekbones, deep-set, almost sleepy-looking eyes, and a mouth with a full upper lip and a not-quite-smile twitching at the edges, all beneath ash-blond hair a few shades lighter than the sweater.  

Will knew that this was Hannibal even before he took in the guards flanking him, or by how everyone else in the room looked just about ready to shit themselves.  

“What’s he doing here?!” the guardsman who’d been Will’s guide (babysitter was probably a more accurate term) barked, looking to the three younger guards who had come in with Hannibal.  “You were under orders to locate him and lock him up, not escort him right back to the scene of his own crime!”

Despite the heavy tension in the room, Hannibal appeared unflustered.  Will watched discreetly as the man’s head turned in a slight, clearly purposeful motion, making Will’s babysitter the center of his calm attention.  It was like watching a whetstone sliding down a knife, Will thought, something in him stirring.  He recalled blood on his hands again, warm from the inside of the body-cavity, slick and dark and smooth.  Drawing in a shaky breath, he tried and failed to dispel the sensation entirely, almost missing it as Hannibal spoke, his voice incredibly cultured and wrapped in an accent that was like smooth river stones beneath old velvet, “I believe you are mistaken.  As your Mr. …?”  

Those eyes moved to Will, and it took the profiler a second to realize that yes, that had been a question; yes, it had been directed at him; and yes, he had some vague idea what answer Hannibal was looking for.  “Uh… Wi-Will Graham,” he stuttered out.  Head still pounding, he rubbed at his upper left arm distractedly, still trying to shake off the sensation of wrapping it around a vulnerable throat and _crushing_.

Hannibal smiled, a remarkably small yet cheery expression.  Very formally, the man dipped his head, the movement once again striking Will as supremely controlled.   _Everything_ about Hannibal was controlled.  Will looked away sharply, realizing that he’d been looking back into tawny eyes, and starting to hyper-empathize again.  “Thank you,” he heard Hannibal say sincerely, while Will looked down at his shoes.  He was grateful when the conversation turned away from him again, “As your Mr. Graham has already deduced, I had nothing to do with this atrocity.  I merely convinced these nice men and woman-”  The guards with Hannibal included one young woman and two men, all looking very nervous now, and shocked, as if they couldn’t believe, in retrospect, why they’d agreed to do this.  “-To let me come and clear my name.  Misunderstandings get more tedious the longer they are left to fester.”

“I don’t think this is a misunderstanding,” the head guard stated stalwartly, and Will glanced at the man a bit uneasily.  There was violence in the air.  It wasn’t that Will was necessarily afraid of violence, but right now, he had a killer still wrapped up like a snake in the back of his skull, and he was afraid of letting it strike.  He felt again the easy choke-hold, the smooth confidence in his body, and was momentarily, irrationally frustrated that he was shorter than he should be…  Will lifted a hand to rub hard at his eyes while the guardsman continued talking, “I think that this is all about you and your ego, returning to see your crime.  You like reliving it, you sick bastard.”

“I assure you, I am not reliving anything,” Hannibal said with a truly laudable amount of calm.  Anyone else would have been rightfully angry at this point, but somehow 003 maintained the proverbial moral high-ground… at least verbally.  “Although I can understand why you’d think so,” the man even allowed, tone low and almost placating.  

“Why?” the guard replied with heavy sarcasm, “Because this is exactly the kind of crime that you’re famous for?  For fucks’ sake, we already found the organs in the kitchen-!”

Mostly, it was the yelling.  Will’s head was about to split open, and if the shouting didn’t stop, he was reasonably sure that he’d spatter his own blood and brain-matter all over everyone in range.  Both hands up and rubbing his temples, Will barked out just loud enough to be heard, interrupting, “It wasn’t him!”  He went on in a rush, eyes closed, determinedly ignoring the fact that everyone was probably staring at him now.  He could all but feel their eyes like fingers pressing against his skin.  “It’s too sloppy to be him.  All of Hannibal’s - Dr. Lecter’s-”  He corrected awkwardly, realizing that familiarizing himself with the files had made him feel like he knew these agents, these psychopaths.  “-Past murders have been meticulous.  Skilled.  This is…”  Will struggled for a word to describe what he was thinking, but it was like being a synesthete and trying to describe the color of a sound.  He struggled, feeling extremely socially awkward.  

Hannibal’s eyes were on him, though, so intense that Will met them for a second, involuntarily, before looking down.  Even that brief bit of contact gave him a sense of endless silence, of the kind of quiet you only found in the dead of a northern winter, where the cold seemed to freeze even the buzzing molecules of things.  It was like temporarily falling into a black hole, and while Will realized, logically, that that should have unsettled him - because no normal, compassionate person was like that on the inside - it instead made him ache for more of it.  His own mind was the opposite, a giant storm of everything, a tornado that had just torn up an entire city by its roots to twist and throw about inside Will’s skull.  

His little sip of Hannibal’s absolute-zero cold was like drinking poison, but being so damn thirsty that all that mattered was that it was a liquid to soothe his parched throat.  It was enough for Will to drag in a breath and finish his sentence, at the very same time as Hannibal intoned the exact same word, “...Artless.”

Will’s eyes snapped up to Hannibal’s again in surprise, and this time, at least, his brain stayed on its leash and behaved - it didn’t try to profile the ashen-blond-haired man in front of him.  Instead, it was just Will inside his own head for a moment, staring out in shock at the avidly interested gaze of the agent across the room.

~^~

On the top floor of the West Wing, which had gone out of use when the new helicopter pad was built on an adjacent rooftop instead, a guardsman ran his hands under the taps in one of the men’s rooms.  He’d wedged the door shut with a doorstop, and the place was windowless, precluding any witnesses.  He’d come in with the most recent batch of guards, but was dressed in civilian clothes at the moment - black shirt, dark jeans.  He’d had a jacket on, but it was in a pile at his feet now, in a plastic bag.  Just as the outside of his shirt was unavoidably smeared with blood, so, too, was the inside of his jacket stained from having been zipped closed over that same blood, hiding it to allow the man to move unnoticed through the hallways.  He’d have to dispose of it - and the blood-streaked plastic gloves - next, but the tide would make short work of the evidence.  He mentally sorted through the various ways to send things off to sea without running the risk of them floating back on the tide.  All the while, he kept washing his hands, ensuring that even if some speck or streak of Captain Connor Smith’s blood had made it past the gloves, it was gone now.  

Unfortunately, digging around in abdominal cavities was messy even with gloves, so there was quite a lot of red being washed down the sink.  Fortunately, he’d hid some heavy-duty cleaning products in this bathroom yesterday, right after arriving with the other guardsmen.  Still, he made a face, disliking the necessity of blaming a goddamned cannibal for this.  

“This had better be worth it, Jim,” the man growled lightly under his breath, before stripping off his bloodied shirt and letting it join his jacket in the bag.  His trousers soon followed, lean muscles on a long, lithe torso working with smooth, practiced ease.  Perhaps he wasn’t exactly practiced at disemboweling a man and staging everything in the kitchen as if saving it for a meal, but meticulously cleaning up all traces?  That Seb could do.  

~^~

“Sorry, 007,” Q said, meaning it, as he finally walked over with the repaired collar in hand.  It was almost an hour later, and the intervening time had been spent with Q going over security footage and tracking data as various people questioned him and/or his skills.  The murder of the helicopter pilot had everyone pretty riled, but Q was able to say, definitively, that Hannibal had been at the scene of the crime within a timeframe consistent with the killing.  However, the cameras in the area had been less forthcoming.  It didn’t help that Eigengrau had literally hundreds of cameras - and while they covered a large area, it was nearly impossible to constantly watch them all for possible signs of foul play.  Certain ‘hotspots’ were watched, of course (areas around living quarters, gathering areas, parts of the building where M and other higher-ups worked.  Unfortunately, Captain White had been killed in a less crucial part of the building that was in a blindspot for the cameras.  

So while everyone had been demanding, “Hannibal did it, though, yes?” Q had had to keep reminding everyone that there was no video evidence.  So far, there had been no biological evidence either, the crime-scene being empty of fingerprints, although it would take time for DNA analysis to get back. Still, everyone seemed certain, and the GPS data seemed to confirm it.

Now, at long last, everyone was gone and Q could turn his attention back to the agent who had been more or less ignored this whole time.  James flashed a small and minimally tolerant smile as Q bent down next to him, open collar in hand.  “Sorry,” Q repeated, this time not referring to the wait.  He didn’t move until blue eyes met his, giving him a chance to hopefully convey how little he enjoyed the act of collaring another person like a dog.  At first, James just frowned at him, displeasure clear and unmoving, but then something in the man seemed to buckle.  007 huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes, but tilted his head obligingly, making it easy to slip the collar into place.  It relocked with soft, almost sibilant series of clicks.  “There.  You’re officially not a flight-risk, although honestly, the Smartblood should have been enough,” Q said frankly.  He looked around for the guards, who had relaxed their vigilance significantly, but who also had the key to the handcuffs.  

“Depends,” James conversed back, the first time he’d spoken in an hour, “Can your Smartblood drop me in my tracks?”

“No,” Q admitted.  The reminder of the collar’s main purpose sobered him.  “Damn, where did those guards get to?  I swear, if they’re in the back gambling with my tech analysts, somebody is going to get skinned.”

“Careful with your threats there, Quartermaster,” James joked, shifting his position a little bit, although by now, Q doubted that anything was comfortable.  “Sybil is always watching, and even if she wasn’t, this is not the atmosphere in which to make violent jokes.”

Q sighed, peering over various cubicles and computer terminals and still failing to find the people he was looking for.  “Maybe you’re right,” he gave in, thinking of the descriptions he’d got of the crime scene, but also of the almost bloodthirsty tone everyone had had, pinning it on 003.  “This is why people don’t work here long, isn’t it?  Events like this make everyone a bit psychotic,” Q guessed.  

He turned back to find 007 already watching him, for all the world patient.  “Why do you ask, Q?  Is it getting harder and harder to tell apart the hares from the Hounds?”

“I’m no more a rabbit than you’re a Hellhound,” Q scoffed.  

“I agree,” James said all too easily, still watching Q with eyes like blue razors, “You’re _much_ more interesting than a rabbit.  Of course, just _how_ interesting depends on what you were looking for, back when we first met.”  

It felt like a cold finger had been dragged down his spine, and Q stopped trying to find 007’s minders and instead checked that no one was within hearing range.  Snapping a tense glare James’s way, Q observed cannily, “You’ve been sitting here like a saint this whole time just to ask me that, haven’t you?  That’s why you haven’t made a fuss, and why you manipulated things to get dragged in here with Silva.”

“That last part was actually just to save you from having Silva all to yourself.”

“And the first part?” Q stuck to his guns, determined to get an answer despite James’s easy evasion.  

In answer… there was a soft click, and 007 brought both of his hands forward, free of handcuffs.  Q stumbled back before remembering that the man’s ankles were still shackled.  Rotating his shoulders with a groan, James twisted his neck and cracked his back, saying lightly, “Well, I wasn’t just sitting around here because I’m lazy.”  He bent down, producing a bent piece of wire that might once had been a paperclip, and began picking the locks to his ankle-cuffs as he must have done ages ago on the cuffs at his wrists.  “So?  While there’s nobody around to eavesdrop but me, do you want to discuss why the Quartermaster of Eigengrau is doing illegal things in his free time?”

Q wasn’t sure whether to run or not, but suddenly he felt more like a deer than the rabbit from the earlier analogy - a deer in the headlights, frozen, even as a 007-shaped train barreled his way.  There was the urge to call out for assistance, because he had no idea what 007 was going to do now that he was free, but the sound somehow got stuck in his throat.  Somehow, though, he did manage to rasp, “I didn’t… I wasn’t… doing anything illegal.”

James glanced up with one ankle still cuffed.  “You’re a piss-poor liar, Q.”  He bent down again to finish his task, pushing the subject without looking up again, “Come on, Q.  Spill.  Who am I going to tell anyway?  I’m an inveterate liar, after all, and you’re the first person to trust my word in easily a year.”  The other cuff fell away with a little click, and still no one was around paying attention.  With all of the earlier excitement, everyone was trying to either hunt down gossip or get a peek at the crime scene - and thanks to that morbid curiosity, Q wasn’t surrounded by as many people as he usually was.  Even H had gone for an early supper.  Q backed up until his thighs hit a table.  

When 007 stood, it was with remarkably little stiffness for a man who’d been keeping still for so long, although he took a moment to stretch before his attention focused back on Q.  He seemed to notice something then, and paused, watching Q’s expression with something like curiosity.  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked quietly, smiling.

“No,” Q shot back, but his voice shook.  

James’s smile just spread, making his eyes dance, the crow’s feet alongside them deepening playfully.  “Are you sure?  I mean, it’s not a bad look on you, and you’d be an idiot _not_ to be afraid of me.”

“I thought you said that this wasn’t a safe atmosphere for people to be making violent threats.”  Q’s mouth kept running, but for some reason he just couldn’t make himself call for help, and that inability confused and frustrated him even as he found it in himself to scowl at the blond-haired agent.  

“No threats,” James raised both hands, palms forward and empty.  Q had the distinct impression that this man was never really harmless, though, regardless of his gestures.  Then the agent’s voice dropped a pitch, a low purr of a register, and his smile took on a Cheshire edge, “Unless you want it to be?”  He eased a step forward, perfectly balanced, a natural economy of motion.  “Hmm?  How about it, Q - do you need a threat or two from me to remember what I am?”  Despite the words, he didn’t sound bitter.  He sounded natural, sincere, a man speaking truths that he’d accepted as part of himself ages go.  He slid another easy pace forward.  “I could threaten to have people check that computer you were at, dig into it and see if they could find your footprints.”

Of all the things that Q could have responded with, what he actually said probably wasn’t the most useful phrase: “If you think that I left footprints to find, then you’re more stupid than I thought.”

Instead of getting angry, James stopped getting closer and his smile became fully-fledged.  It was quite a wolfish grin, but if anything, it looked like the man was having fun now.  He folded his muscular arms and settled his weight on one foot, a more complacent posture than before.  “So there is something to hide then?”

“Why are you so bloody interested?” Q hissed, looking around them.  Still no one within hearing range.  If he raised his head, he could see the tops of people’s heads in nearby cubicles, but they clearly weren’t paying attention to the world around them.  Or their rather compromised Quartermaster.

“Because boredom’s a bitch,” James said bluntly, “and you’re officially the least boring thing that’s landed on this island since that egotistical know-it-all they dragged in here two months ago.”

Immediately, Q froze, and he knew that 007 noticed; the playfulness froze in place like a video put on pause, blue eyes growing cool and keen.  “What did you say?” Q asked at a whisper.  

James didn’t answer.  His face was expressionless, the look of a falcon on a distant branch, just watching.  Calculating.  Learning all the variables instead of putting on a show and playing around like he’d been just seconds ago.  Later, Q would look back at this and be unsettled by how quickly 007 could go between the two settings: demonically playful and inhumanly detached.  

Right now, of course, what Q did instead was stalk right up to the man and fist a hand in his shirtfront.  Leaning right into Bond’s face, utterly forgetting that he was a high-Pass agent with unpredictable homicidal issues, Q demanded in a desperately soft whisper, “ _What_ did you say?  Who did they bring in?”

Bond moved without warning.  A hand came up over Q’s mouth while James’s other hand fisted in the collar of Q's shirt, gaining a more effective grip than Q’s by far, spinning him around.  Q found his back against a cubicle wall, 007’s calloused hand firmly muffling him.  Next, Q expected violence, but instead James released his shirt and reached higher instead.  Q flinched, closing his eyes as he felt fingertips on his cheek, but all that happened was 007 slipped his glasses off.  The move was careful, almost gentle, and Q suppressed the urge to struggle for just a moment longer as he opened his eyes.  This close, even without glasses, Q could make out 007’s expression, and all it held right now was quiet interest and thoughtfulness.  Glasses hooked over his fingers, Bond used his thumb to very lightly brush Q’s hair, and the silence and stillness remained unbroken as Q tried to anticipate what was coming - or even what was going on right now.  With Q’s hair settled a certain way, James murmured, “Well, I’ll be damned.  You look just like him.  How did I miss it?”

Sherlock.  James was talking about how much Q looked like Sherlock.  James had _seen him_.  Suddenly Q couldn’t hold onto the fear buzzing through his veins, because even though he had a high-Pass agent close enough to kill him, all that he could think about was Sherlock.  

James suddenly twitched, collar glinting as he straightened and turned before hurriedly tucking the stolen glasses into the neck of Q’s cardigan.  “As much as I’m enjoying this…” he whispered, then released his hold on Q’s face.  Without even finishing the sentence - although it had sounded like a worrisomely sincere remark - 007 abruptly turned on one heel and beat a swift retreat.  He was out the door before Q could even draw in a breath to call after him.

The reason for Bond’s sudden exit became apparent barely a second later.  A head popped into view around the cubicle wall.  Q couldn’t recognize the face with his glasses still off, but he recognized the voice as one of his more diligent minions, “Quartermaster?  Is everything all right?  I took my earbuds out and I heard-  Well, you see, I listen to music to cut out distractions, not because I’m neglecting my job, but I thought I heard-”

“I’m fine,” Q cut off the haphazard rambling before the techie could work himself into a tizzy.  Feeling shaky as the adrenaline fizzled through his system, and strangely cold now that he didn’t have Bond’s body-heat pressed threateningly against him, Q hurriedly plucked his glasses from their new perch and replaced them on his nose.  Surprisingly, 007 hadn’t even smudged them.  “I was just thinking.  Please, go back to work.”

Now that Q could see with twenty-twenty vision again, he could see that the techie was a bit worried still, but ultimately gave in with an obedient, “Sir,” and disappeared back into the cubicle.  Q remained where he was, dragging two fingers across his mouth, imagining that he could still feel James’s rough palm as he’d held him there.  The encounter had left Q feeling very shaken, but every time his mind tried to instill the memory with fear, all he could think was that James had just given him exactly the lead he’d been looking for.  

The only problem was that 007 was the lead, and that meant Q was going to have to talk to him again.  That thought was finally enough to shake Q’s courage a bit, and he made a beeline for his office, where he kept an electric kettle.  Hopefully a hot cup of tea would help him to calm down and think, before the growing tremors in his hands got the best of him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it bad that my favorite part to write was Bond suddenly getting dangerous...?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which we meet Eggsy, and Q makes a deal with the metaphorical devil. The 'devil' is impressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM BACK IN RANGE OF WIFI (and back from my yearly trip to the Motherland)

With one helicopter pilot dead and the killer locked up (or at least the alleged killer), Eigengrau was not unlike a lightly stirred hornets’ nest.  It didn’t help that an unprecedented number of agents were all on the island at the same time.  It was nearly unheard of for agents 001 through 009 to all be grounded at the same time, much less such a large percentage of the numbers above that.  The invention of Smartblood was also unprecedented, however, so despite the risks, further missions had been tabled for at least another week until the data were in, and it was clear that Smartblood worked or didn’t.  Meanwhile, Handlers were run ragged trying to keep their agents in line and out of trouble.  

The arrival of the new helicopter pilot helped  to ease a lot of nerves.  It had been a quick hiring with Eigengrau’s policy of having five pilots making them eager to fill the gap, even if no one had been prepared for any of this.  Usually, new hirings were sources of wariness and anxiety as a new person was laboriously trained and inducted into the fold,  but the new pilot was an unexpected exception.  A young fellow, with an MLE accent and an engaging sense of humor, the new pilot became a crowd favorite surprisingly quickly.  It probably helped that his predecessor had been overall a grumpy individual, and soon the newcomer - known as ‘Oxford,’ codenamed like everyone else with only M probably knowing his real name on file - was accepted into the ranks of his fellows.  He was boisterous and loud, and didn’t know a stranger.  He was also surprisingly self-assured and fearless considering his metaphorical ‘new kid on the block’ status on an island stocked with high-Pass killers.  

A considerable number of people judged him as lower-class because of his accent, but they stopped underestimating him after seeing him fly.  The kid was young, cheeky, and didn’t talk like the Queen but he was ace in the air.  

This generally cheery, friendly personality quickly became familiar to everyone he had contact with.  Therefore, it would have been something of a shock had any of those people seen ‘Oxford’ the night after his arrival, walking the halls long after most everyone else was asleep.  

‘Oxford’ counted turns and repeated directions to himself under his breath, making up for the fact that he didn’t know his surroundings quite yet.  Of his easygoing attitude, there was nothing evident. Even his posture was rougher, more daunting, like an alley cat stalking through enemy territory with its back partially arched for effect.  Serious hazel eyes took in everything they could in the nighttime ‘half lighting’ used on non-crucial halls like these..  He fingered a good luck charm hung around his neck on a pendant, rubbing at the familiar pattern: a tipped over ‘K’ set within two conc, the random phrase ‘Oxfords not Brogues’ etched into the back.  

Despite his watchfulness, 'Oxford' didn’t see the taller figure until it stepped out of the shadows of a doorway to his right.  

The new pilot immediately jumped away, drawing a knife seemingly out of nowhere - a simple thing, smaller than the usual military issue, but familiar in his hand.  The man who’d spooked him circled out of reach but otherwise didn’t get too excited.  “ _Fucking_ hell,” the pilot exhaled harshly, even as he recognized the older man.  Still, he only lowered his knife; he didn’t put it away.  “You’re a bit old to be sneaking up on a bloke,” he grumbled.  

The other man ignored him.  Tall and handsome in a lean way, he had a serene expression and eyes that appeared cold even in the dark.  “Have you had any issues gaining access to all of the helicopters?” he asked.  

Oxford released another puff of air, this time huffing it upwards and rustling his gold-brown fringe.  “Nah, not too much.  I’m supposed to focus on just my bird, but the other pilots are good guys.”

“Good,” said the other man, without any particular inflection to give away whether that ‘good’ made him happy or not, “Because this plan depends heavily on you, Unwin, and I don’t have to tell you what happens if you don’t come through.”

The younger man immediately tensed, something violent lighting his eyes.  His hands clenched, the knife a constant reminder of danger in his right fist.  “I fucking know,” he said in a low, steadily controlled growl.  

“Good.  Then take this-”  The other man passed over a mobile.  Everyone had Eigengrau-issued devices for communication purposes, but this one was clearly outside that system.  The new pilot gave the phone a glance and then quickly secreted it away on his person - something he was far better at than he had any right to be.  He’d been hired by Eigengrau as a pilot, but he had a plethora of other skills that were only useful on the other side of the law.  The taller man continued, “-And keep out of trouble.”  A small, impersonal smile stretched the man’s mouth, showing teeth in a wolfish sort of expression.  “With any luck, this will all be over in a week, and you can go back to your life a richer man.”  

With that, the older man turned and left, something of a predator in his gait, like a wolf made sinewy by winter.  Eggsy took deep breaths through his nose to try and rein in his temper, closing his eyes as the other man’s subtle threats conjured images that made him want to scream, or vomit, or cry.  “Seb, you bastard,” he snarled under his breath, even though he knew that Seb wasn’t actually the person at the heart of this.  

No, the person at the heart of this plot would be arriving in under a week, and Eggsy Unwin would be expected to play his part.

~^~

Q needed to talk to Bond.  That was all there was to it.  

True, the risk of getting caught hacking might have been less than the risk of getting caught by a dangerous high-Pass agent, but only in a physical sense.  Q would have no doubt survived being caught hacking into secure information, but his mission would have definitely been over, and all it would have taken  was one error on his part.  Eigengrau kept all its data on a need-to-know basis, and if you didn’t need to know, then you basically had to move mountains to get the data - all without setting off layers upon layers of alarms.  Dealing with James, however, meant there were more options - or at least _opportunities_ for favorable outcomes.  The worst possibility, of course, was that 007 murdered him.  From all of his dealings with the man, however, Q was beginning to doubt that that would happen.  Bond was definitely dangerous, but the closest he’d come to bodily harm against Q’s person thus far was yesterday, and Q had grabbed _him_ first.  007 seemed to follow rules… now if Q could just figure out those rules, maybe then he could work with them.  

It felt a lot like mapping out a minefield blindfolded.  

One thing that Q was certain of, however, was that Bond was curious about him.  ‘ _Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back_ ,’ the phrase went, and 007 kept coming back and apparently hadn’t been dissatisfied so far.  Q was going to go prematurely grey from stress, of course, but he figured that that was a small price to pay if it meant that James was treating him with curiosity rather than violence.  It was a double-edged sword, unfortunately, because the same secrets that no doubt kept 007 coming back to Q were also secrets that he could use to control Q or ruin him if he wished - something he’d hinted at in his idle threats yesterday.  Bond had a nose for buried secrets and a mind for manipulation, that was certain.  

Well, Q would just have to see if two could play that game.  

By now, Q had debugged most of the issues with the Smartblood program, even though M insisted that Q keep running diagnostics.  Therefore, it was easy as pie to locate James within Eigengrau and then begin tracking him and waiting for an opportunity to catch him alone.  Q had familiarized himself with the security cameras, and between tracking James as a little red dot on a map and peeping in on him through available cameras, Q was able to tell even when 007 was escorted by guards.  Bond was between Handlers, Q recalled, so ‘interim minders’ were on him quite a lot of the time.  When Bond ended his day in one of the open gyms, however, and the late hour meant that no one else was there, the guards left him to his own devices.  After all, what trouble could he get up to all by his lonesome?  Between the Smartblood and the collar, it wasn’t like he could make a run for it when no one was looking,.  

Q immediately closed out his screens, looked up to say a swift farewell to everyone only to realize that it was so late that no one was left but him, and darted off towards Gym #3.  He took his tablet with him, keeping connected to the security feeds and essentially tracking his own progress - pausing frequently to scout ahead remotely.  This would have been a godsend back when he’d broken into the computer lab, because this time around, Q avoided any and all human beings on the way to the gym.  

Once there, he paused outside the doors, taking in a deep breath.  “You can do this, Q,” he said to himself, then made a face, rethought his words, and corrected wryly, “You _have_ to do this.”  Before he could think better of it, Q pushed open the door and let himself in.  

He immediately heard the rhythmic slaps of skin on padding.  It took only a quick sweep of Q’s eyes to take in the room - broad and deep  with a low ceiling and all kinds of exercise equipment from treadmills to weights to punching bags to a floor of mats; one wall was occupied sporadically by mirrors, some looking like they’d been removed, probably broken.  James was halfway across the room, in jogging trousers and a sleeveless tee, barefoot and methodically pounding away on what looked like a simplified version of a tree: a vertical log with horizontal ‘branches’ jutting out at various points, all lightly padded.  James was standing in close to it, wrapped hands snapping out and hitting either ‘branches’ or ‘trunk’ with snake-fast speed before pulling back towards his body again.  He finished a swift combination of strikes before straightening out of his guarded stance and turning to face Q, face momentarily frozen over with caution.  The look broke into a wary smirk as he recognized who the newcomer was, however.  

“Quartermaster,” he greeted warmly, draping an arm over a horizontal beam and leaning lazily against it.  Q could see how sweat had stuck 007’s shirt to his chest down the center and over his sternum, emphasizing the contours of his pectoral muscles.  “I never took you for the exercising type.  What brings you here?”

Now that he was sure he’d indeed caught 007 alone, Q held off answering as he focused on his tablet one more time.  Bracing it on one forearm, he tapped the screen, activating a few programs.  All it took was the work of seconds to knock out the audio on the gym cameras.  Usually, anyone watching focused purely on the video, anyway, but Q didn’t want to run the risk of someone replaying the conversation he was going to have with one of Eigengrau’s deadliest and best.  

James’s mercurial expressions had gone from teasing to watchful again.  He tipped his chin towards Q’s tablet.  “You just did something there.  Care to tell me what before I start jumping to conclusions?”  There was just the finest thread of threat in his words, the first low bubbling growl of a wolf.  

“I figured it would be prudent to make sure that no one listened in,” Q said evenly. “The cameras are still recording video on the off-chance that you get it in your head to murder me, but the audio recording system has experienced a sudden and inexplicable glitch.”  Q didn’t look up the whole time he spoke, finding it easier to converse about such dangerous matters when he was focused on a screen - even as he regretfully turned off that screen and slipped it into his satchel.  He held his breath as he finally looked up, meeting 007’s expression again to judge his reaction.

The man was smirking.  “Why do I suspect that what you just told me isn’t listed on your CV?” he teased, but he was clearly thrilled.  Now 007 folded both arms over the short beam, so that he could rest his chin atop corded forearms, attention still rapt on Q, but his body relaxed.  

Q sighed, finally admitting to himself that 007 was about to learn the depths of Q’s subterfuge anyway, and said resignedly, “There might be some key omissions on my CV.”

“I knew it,” James gloated then pushed back from the post and wandered over to one of the benches.  He began unwrapping his hands as he walked, and Q gave in and followed him.  

“Then you also probably know that I’m here to ask you some questions,” Q pressed, wringing the strap of his satchel between his hands, watching 007 intently for signs of danger, “About the man you saw, two months ago.  The one who looked like me.”

“Is he your brother?” James guessed.  

Sweat had stuck the back of 007’s shirt to his body, too, and Q found himself momentarily mesmerized by the easily visible play of muscles across the back of his shoulders as 007 continued unwinding the wrappings from his right fist.  There were a lot of things Q would say about the high-Pass agents at Eigengrau, but he’d never say that they weren’t physically enticing specimens - like the pretty glow that an anglerfish used as bait.  “Yes,” Q finally gave out the information, and was surprised what a weight it seemed to take off him.  It made the rest of his words come out easier. “He was arrested two months ago, and it’s taken me this long to get to him - only now we’re on the same bloody island, and I still don't know where he is.”

James angled a look over his shoulder at Q, expression a bit disparaging.  “You’re not seriously here to get him out, are you?”

Q stiffened and bristled defensively.  “I am.”  

“You really are mad,” James opined, then, surprisingly, turned back to his task.  “Not that I’m complaining.  A bit of insanity really livens up the place,” he added in a lazy drawl.

“Look, I’m not here to have my plan questioned,” Q burst out, exasperated. “Believe me, I’m already well aware of how impractical this is.”

“Impractical?  Try bat-shit insane.”

“Fine then.  I’m still doing it,” Q closed the topic, folding his arms, but immediately unfolded them and was ready to run as 007 turned to face him without warning.  Bond’s hands were bare now, but he still had the tape in his hands, and Q had a vivid thought about how easily that could become a means of strangulation.  

But then the agent tossed the used tape into a nearby bin.  “You really believe you have a chance, don’t you?” he marvelled, and this time it was 007 who folded his arms, muscles bunching then relaxing into the new posture.  He seemed sincerely bewildered.  

Puffing out a little sigh past his nose, Q answered, “I have to believe that.”

For a moment, a little hum of acknowledgement was the only response Q got, and he worried that that would be the end of it.  James had him at a disadvantage, and Q didn’t feel prepared to threaten the man with the collar as many others might have.  Perhaps James was thinking of that, too, because his eyes kept straying to Q’s watch.  

Finally, James ended his silence and said, “Tell you what - you take that watch off, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

The Quartermaster’s eyes rounded before he could control his reaction.  He just about asked, involuntarily, if James was serious, but obviously he was - and if he wasn’t, he was clearly stubborn as hell and would stick to his demand anyway.  

Perhaps seeing Q’s uncertainty, the blue-eyed agent reminded, “You’ve got your cameras.”  He glanced up to where one of four hung from the ceiling.  “You’re not alone, per se.”

“Maybe, but you and I both know that at this hour, it’s not one-hundred percent guaranteed that people are watching those cameras,” Q countered, throat tight and heart beginning to hammer harder in his chest.  

“True, but someone will check eventually.  If I murder you, I won’t get away with it,” 007 pointed out as if that was the next logical conclusion to come to.  

“That isn’t nearly as comforting as you think it is,” Q assured.  

“Well, if it helps, I’m not too keen on being executed for the death of Eigengrau’s new Quartermaster,” James shrugged and pointed out, giving insight into how his own morals and logic worked - or at least how his pragmatism and logic worked, as he seemed to be rather bypassing morals, “The only reason Hannibal is still alive now is because the pilot he _allegedly_ killed wasn’t all that high up on the food chain.”

“But you’ve killed Handlers.”  Q’s voice was a lot weaker than he’d meant it to be.

James met his eyes without blinking.  “Yes.”  He let that sink in, eyes moving keenly to catch the way Q shivered and flexed his hands nervously.  “But you’d be surprised how often Handlers try to kill us.”  Q blinked, caught off-guard by that simple, calm statement, but before he could ask for clarification, James was already going on as if that last point was immaterial to him, “If it helps, you’re decidedly more important than even a Handler.  I’m a lot of things, but I’m not stupid, and I’m neither homicidal or suicidal.”

That, at least, Q believed.  He found his initial denial crumbling.  “If…”  Q started, unable to believe he was doing this, but desperate to get answers, “If I remove my watch… that’s all you want?  You’ll answer my questions, then we’ll both be on our way, as if nothing ever happened here?”

“Almost,” James countered with a small, close-lipped smirk.  Q had noticed that while most of the agents smiled with their teeth, dangerous expressions born in the days when all predators had fangs to show off, James tended to keep his lips sealed as if he were trapping secrets in his mouth.  His eyes gave it away, though, blue and dancing even as Q’s heart plummeted.  “If you get to ask me questions, I get to ask you questions.  Fair?”

“Shit,” Q grumbled to himself, looking for an alternative, but one hadn’t magically appeared in the last few seconds.  “Fine.  But if we’re going for fairness, then your answers had better be truthful and complete,” Q found enough courage to shoot back, meeting 007’s eyes squarely. “If you give me half-arsed answers, then that’s what I’ll give you, too.”

The show of moxie had James’s eyebrows raising in surprise at first, before his smile broadened.  Q was beginning to realize that this was a game for 007 - but that the game wasn’t fun if winning was easy.  Never would Q have thought that his own mulishness would turn out to be a positive trait in the eyes of a highly skilled killer.  “Deal,” James said without hesitation then looked meaningfully at Q’s watch.  

This was the hard part.  For the slow count of five, Q couldn’t make his hands move and just stared stupidly at his right wrist.  He hadn’t used the device for anything but timekeeping since he’d gotten here, but the ability to disable or even kill an attacking agent had always been there like a safety net.  Now, he was being challenged to do a highwire act without that net, and the idea was paralyzing.  007 didn’t push, leaving Q alone with his thoughts until finally the pressure boiled over.  Q’s left hand went for the watch, and 007 at first stiffened but then relaxed as the younger man’s deft fingers undid the strap instead of going for the buttons.  “Fuck it,” Q muttered, removing the device but also glancing at 007 over the rims of his glasses, “You could have killed me already, couldn’t you?  Regardless of this watch.”

“Probably,” James admitted.  One side of his mouth was curled upwards, and he looked quietly pleased with himself.  “But doing that would mean depriving myself of whatever it is you have planned.”  When Q looked guarded and puzzled, James elaborated with another eloquent lift of one shoulder, “I think that your plan is insane and doomed to failure, but I still want to watch.”

“You’re viewing me as a train-wreck waiting to happen, and you want front-row seats,” Q realized.  The watch fell away from his wrist.  He watched the involuntary way James’s eyes snapped to it, intensely watching.  

The crooked smile widened a fraction more.  “Now you’re catching on.”

“You bastard,” Q found himself saying, before he snapped his mouth shut, shoved the watch into his satchel with his tablet, and slipped the whole thing from his shoulders.  He set it on the nearest bench.  “There.  Happy?”

“Ecstatic.”  James unfolded his arms and made a vague, open gesture with his hands.  “What do you want to know?”

Q’s relief at not being instantly betrayed and attacked was so palpable that his knees went momentarily weak.  He barely managed not to sway, and his voice came out a bit hoarse, “Sherlock.  Was the new recruit named Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yes.”  When Q made a little noise of helpless delight, James kept to the rest of the bargain, immediately asking back, “Are you a Holmes, too?”

“Yes.”  Tit-for-tat.  Q felt nervous for a second, seeing the laser-light intensity with which 007 devoured that knowledge - but then he remembered that this man was essentially a prisoner, and unlikely to be believed no matter what stories he told.  “Sherlock is my older brother,” he therefore felt safe enough adding.  Next question.  “Where is he now?”

“Holding.”

“Yes, I know that,” Q huffed in exasperation, and thankfully, James just cocked his head and waited expectantly instead of taking his due of another question, yet.  Q asked again, “What I don’t know is where the bloody hell ‘Holding’ is - and why he’s there.  Is it normal for a new agent to be secluded for so long?”

“No, it’s not,” James admitted, and for the first time he looked a bit bemused himself.  He started to pace a little as he thought and talked.  “A fortnight is normal - maybe a month, depending on how long it takes the new Hound to accept the reality of their situation.  But not two months.”

“Do you think he’s-”  Q cut himself off, not only because it was rightly Bond’s turn to ask a question but because this was a question he didn’t actually want the answer to.  Biting his lip, Q shuffled to a stop, only realizing then that he’d been shadowing 007 as the man padded quietly around the room.  

James turned around, gaze as steady and keen as honed steel and just as pitiless as he filled in where Q had left off, “Do I think he’s dead?”  When Q pursed his lips and fought to hide how deeply the question stabbed, 007’s eyes turned just fractionally more human, although it was easy to miss the difference.  Fortunately, he went ahead and answered, even though Q was technically breaking the back-and-forth pattern.  “No, I’m pretty sure he’s alive.  Harkness sometimes fucks M’s secretary, and the fellow has access to an absolutely ungodly amount of information - sometimes he gives some of that information to Harkness.”  James caught Q’s vaguely scandalized look and grinned like a fox in a henhouse.  He hooked a finger in the hoop of deadly metal around his neck, saying, “Just because we’re collared like dogs doesn’t mean we’re entirely helpless, Q.  In fact, I’ve yet to meet anyone who can keep a secret after Harkness gets them in bed.”

“That is… very unethical,” Q just barely managed to say.  

“To be fair, he makes it worth their while.”  James was still having entirely too much fun at Q’s expense, blue eyes wicked.  “I’ve never heard anyone complain.”

“Oh my god, just stop,” Q begged, pinching the bridge of his nose and involuntarily imagining 001 and how much of a flirt the man had been when he’d met him.  A very _good_ flirt.  And also a very handsome flirt who clearly knew how to use his mouth as well as his co-  Q squeezed his eyes shut as if that could somehow stop that train of thought.  “Sherlock.  We were talking about Sherlock,” he reminded stubbornly.  “He’s alive?”

James’s chuckle was low and deep, and Q almost felt it more in his sternum than heard it in his ears.  But the man showed mercy and replied, “Yes.  M’s secretary has a guardsman friend; a military man who was being groomed as your brother’s Handler.  He hasn’t been reassigned, so your brother is still in the running for 010.”

“010-?”  Q dropped his hand and opened his eyes in surprise.  

“Hey - you’ve had your turn and then some,” 007 cut him off this time, then began his walking again.  It couldn’t even properly be called pacing, because there was nothing frenetic or nervous about it; the man was simply moving, like a tide that, by nature, wasn’t meant to stay still.  It made his long stint of sitting in Q-branch even more impressive, really.  Clearly the man could choose to become a statue - but right now he wasn’t bothering.  “What did your brother do to get here?”

Q made a soft noise of frustration, but it was an old emotion - frustration with Sherlock was something of a natural state of being for the entire family.  “He… He had a habit of turning up at crime scenes.  Homicides.  He said he was investigating them.  And before you ask-”  Q lifted a belaying hand, just as 007 turned and started to raise an eyebrow at him.  The agent let him keep talking, amused.  “-No, he didn’t commit any of them.  I was his alibi at least twice, and if you knew Sherlock, you’d know that he’s just damnably curious.”

“Then why’d his Psychopass go up?” James furthered his question, “I assume it did, or he wouldn’t be here.”

This was the tricky part.  Q sucked in a breath, let it out.  “I don’t know.”

James eyed him for a moment then said, very succinctly but without inflection, “You’re lying.”

Q tensed and turned away guiltily.  “It’s… complicated.”

“Aren’t we all?” James asked with a slant of his mouth that was beginning to look more dangerous than humorous.  He’d turned to face Q again, arms folded like a bulwark, and Q’s wrist felt suddenly very empty, and his body felt suddenly very fragile.  

“All right, fine, it’s-  It’s that…”  Q cut off with a little growl, casting about for an answer that would make sense but was also the truth, because while Q had managed to lie his way all the way into Eigengrau, he couldn’t get even one lie past 007.  “Sherlock has probably…”  There was no way to surgarcoat it.  Q heaved a sigh and just blurted, “Sherlock has probably always had a high Psychopass.  Death doesn’t bother him in the slightest and hasn’t since he was a child, and people only matter to him about one percent of the time.  He’s probably a high-functioning sociopath.”  Now came, impossibly, the more difficult part, and Q just gave up on watching 007’s every move and instead closed his eyes, saying with a wince, “But I know for a fact that sometimes, no matter what the government tells you, the Sybil System messes up.”

“What are you saying?” James asked, voice laced with caution.  

Q let his head rock back tiredly on his neck, eyes still closed.  He felt suddenly exhausted… and exactly like he’d been living a double-life in a high-security prison for the past weeks.  “I’m saying that I’ve hacked the Sybil System.”

“ _What_?”  Caution had turned to surprised disbelief.  It sounded like someone had stepped on 007’s metaphorical tail, and Q had the ridiculous urge to laugh.

“Sybil picks favorites, and just like she lets me get away with traipsing around in her systems, she used to let Sherlock get away with nosing around dead bodies.”  In for a pence, in for a pound.  It felt rather nice to finally talk about this.  Q finally opened his eyes and lowered his head, if only to see James’s look of startled denial.  He reflected that it was probably the most authentic expression he’d tricked out of the Hound yet.  “But then he apparently went too far, so now he’s here with a Psychopass of 125.”

Bond was slowly digesting this, and if not accepting it, at least compartmentalizing it.  “What’s your number?” he asked slowly.  

Aware that he owed Bond two questions, Q shrugged, “66.  But I’m not honestly sure if that’s true, because it never fluctuates.  It’s frozen.  So was Sherlock’s until 2 months ago.”

“Christ.”

“Oh, something godly, certainly, but only if that god is a machine.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of internal politics at work here - both the politics that govern Eigengrau employees, and the shadier unspoken rules that Hounds go by (like 007 talking about what kind of murders are tolerated and which aren't, therefore deciding whether Q is safe or not), and that's before getting into Sybil's own secret politics... Don't hesitate to ask questions in comments! This is an increasingly complex world, and I enjoy talking about it!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Sherlock.  
> And John. 
> 
> And the rather explosive first meeting of Harry Hart and 'Oxford'...
> 
> Or, the chapter that starts slow, but swiftly escalates to the shit truly hitting the fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are actually even more new faces to be found, but I'll leave them for a surprise ;)

Sherlock had been investigating a series of murders because Scotland Yard was too stupid to realize that they were connected.  It was obvious, really.  True, the individuals were from various backgrounds, had no physical similarities, and had never met, but if they were not connected, then these people were simply too bland to have all been killed.  Unfortunately, that argument didn’t really work out well with the police.  

And by the time Sherlock had truly begun to make breakthroughs, he had been arrested.  

“You know that I’m right,” Sherlock said from his holding cell, which was enchantingly medieval compared to the rest of Eigengrau.  The majority of the facilities that Sherlock had seen upon his arrival had been state-of-the-art, but Holding wasn’t.  It had been built earlier, he surmised, and  actually had bars like jail cells from the Old American West and big keys for the locks instead of electronic locks with codes.  

The man who sat on the chair outside the cell, a short fellow with sandy hair and an increasingly prominent frown-line between his eyebrows, dragged a hand down his face and groaned instead of responding.  

Sherlock took that as encouragement.  “You know that it’s not protocol to keep an incoming agent locked up for two months - not unless I had some sort of infectious disease that needed to be quarantined - in which case, they clearly don’t care about you contracting it.”  That still didn’t start a conversation, but thankfully, Sherlock had more than enough words for the both of them, and boredom was making him feel loquacious, “Discounting that, the initial orders to have me euthanized should also be seen as suspect.  After all, what did I do?  I don’t have a violent history-”

“Sherlock, you were hovering around fresh corpses like a very interested vulture,” the other man, Sherlock’s prospective Handler, finally muttered.  

“Yes, but I wasn’t convicted of any of those crimes,” Sherlock waved that off.  He got up to pace, long legs eating up the distance from one side of his cell to the other.  “And did I hurt anyone since coming to this insufferable place?  No!  Tell me what I did to get myself here, John.”  Sherlock rounded on one heel and came up to the bars that made up the front wall of his present living space, gripping them and glaring through them at the other man.  

John Watson, physically unassuming but military trained; stronger than he looked, but with a leg that he favored on stormy days (likely psychosomatic); highly moral, but also highly mindful of chains of command.  It was that latter fact that Sherlock was most annoyed with now.  

For a moment, the two matched gazes, both glaring, neither willing to blink.  Finally, though, John heaved in a breath and looked away, sighing, “I don’t know, Sherlock, but I’m not exactly privy to every decision in all of Eigengrau.”

“But you were there right before they decided to lock me away,” Sherlock pressed, veritably vibrating like a hound eager to follow a scent.  He had answers like an ocean inside of him, but he couldn’t do anything about them - nothing except rant to Watson.  “I made deductions that _someone_ didn’t want to hear, and there were enough people of status in the room that I estimate any number of them could have taken it upon themselves to order my execution.”

“Sherlock, after only knowing you for five minutes, I kind of wanted to order your execution.”

“That’s immaterial, John.”

“Fine then, what’s _material_?”

It wasn’t often that Sherlock got someone who encouraged him - even at home, Siger and Mycroft had mostly just relegated him to background noise, usually too busy with projects of their own to submerge themselves in Sherlock’s hobbies, too.  John, however, for as much as he was clearly annoyed, wasn’t a bad person - and therefore he only seemed to stay angry at Sherlock for short stretches, and then gave in and started conversations like these.  It was surprising what a little comment like this could do to focus Sherlock's thoughts.  He paused now, eyes rapidly dissecting the middle distance, thinking.  “Gareth Mallory is not to blame, as he was the one who spoke up on my behalf and pointed out how ludicrous it would be to euthanize me like a rabid cat simply because I said something untoward.”

John pointed out, “You did kinda accuse the entire upper echelon of being rotten.”

“Not the _entire_ upper echelon,” Sherlock huffed, “I merely pointed out that they had a traitor or two in their midst, someone who was murdering people on the waiting list for Eigengrau employee positions.”

“I know you said that, Sherlock - but how?” John demanded, raising his hands helplessly.  The man sat forward, his features set seriously, and laid out, “I get that you were the first person to connect all of those murders to Eigengrau, and that’s bloody incredible, considering you did it all without access to highly secure employment files.”  Sherlock preened a bit, momentarily forgetting that he was being lectured by someone with only a fraction of his intellect.  “But how does someone _from Eigengrau_ manage to get away with murder without getting caught by the Sybil System?  That’s the whole point of the system.  Only people with high Psychopasses commit murder, and people with high Psychopasses _get arrested_ , often times before they can even commit their first crime.  And no place gets more scrutinized than Eigengrau itself.”

“Someone who works outside of Eigengrau then,” Sherlock tried, John’s words forcing him to look at things from a different angle.  

John sat back with a huff.  “In that case, brilliant work, Sherlock, you just offended nearly all of my employers for nothing.  We’ll be lucky if they don’t keep us both on ice until we’re old men.”  The smaller man cocked his head.  “Unless they officially give your title of 010 to someone else, and I get a new Hound who’s less offensive to powerful people.”

Pacing again, Sherlock tapped long fingers to his lips and admitted, “Perhaps I miscalculated.”

“You think?” John raised both eyebrow nearly up to his hairline.  After holding the look of derision for a moment, though, he sagged and dropped his face into his hands again.  Sherlock wasn’t really very good at sympathy, but at that moment, he paused and made a face, realizing that this couldn’t be easy for Watson either.  

“You had a decorated military career, and were honored to be given this assignment at Eigengrau,” Sherlock deduced softly, combining observations to come up with a picture as easily as an artist making a stained glass window, “Especially when you were informed that you’d be a Handler, not just a dime-a-dozen guard.  For the next Agent 010, in fact.”  At John’s look of surprise, Sherlock tried on a smile; it was anemic, but sincere.  “I’m aware of what significance the numbers carry.  I’m also aware that this-”  He gestured around them.  “-Is the equivalent of quietly being honorably discharged, but without the benefits.”

For a moment, John just stared at him, hands still covering most of his face and therefore his expression.  Sherlock expected to be called a freak for knowing all that, but instead, John dropped his hands and said slowly, “We’ll figure this out.”  

The words hit Sherlock like a sucker-punch he hadn’t been prepared for.  He looked away sharply, blinking fast, and suddenly unsure what to do with himself.  Responding was out of the question.  

The middle Holmes brother went back to pacing without a word, his brain working at an even more furious pace than when he had first started trying to get himself - and perhaps John Watson - out of this mess.  

~^~

Trailing along in the Hound's wake, Q was starting to realize something, and he didn’t know if it was good or not.  007 hadn’t questioned Q about the little glitches in the Sybil System, which either meant that James believed Q or simply didn’t care if those were lies or not.  One way or another, though, instead of getting more bored with every secret that was revealed - making Q less and less mysterious - 007 seemed to be getting increasingly interested.  

When Q asked if James knew where Holding was, the agent had answered in the affirmative and even given directions to the far western side of the facilities - but when it was Bond’s turn to ask a question, he wanted to know, “Are you naturally a risk-taker?”  

The question had seemed so odd that Q had just stared and blinked for a moment, before suddenly bursting out in something like hysterical laughter.  He’d quickly gotten it under control, assuring Bond that, no, he wasn’t a risk-taker.  He was only doing this because he had to.  

“And you don’t enjoy playing ‘secret agent’ even a little bit?” Bond had asked next with a tempting smile.  

Unsettled, Q had looked away.  “You already used your question.”  In reality, though, the question felt like a seed in his mind, already growing roots.  Did he really hate all of this?  Up until now, he thought he had.  Up until now, of course, he’d also thought that Bond was like a lion: predatory, dangerous, and cunning in a feral, simplistic way.  

Now James was unfolding like a fractal, growing more complicated, and that was making it harder and harder for Q to figure out how to react to him.  

The conversation had reached a bit of a lull, if only because Q was trying to absorb so much information - not all of it related to Sherlock - and formulate more questions at the same time.  007’s idle pacing had brought them across the room again, to one of the mirrors that hadn’t been broken by rowdy Hounds, and Q had finally just stopped there, needing to think.  “Do you know why my brother is still in Holding after all this time?” he finally asked.    

With Q stationary, 007 shifted his pattern of movement so that he was like a big shark tethered to Q’s position, rhythmically and smoothly cutting a path back and forth behind Q, visible in the mirror.  “That I don’t know - not for sure,” James started, then went on, laying out information as easily as a butcher laid out cuts of meat, “But one of your employees might know.  A bloke I think has the nickname of ‘Merlin’.  Hart’s Handler, Roxy, is sleeping with him, I think, and word travels.”

“Jesus, does all of your information come second-hand from someone else’s pillow talk?” Q demanded in exasperation.  He didn’t turn away from the mirror for fear of his blush being more obvious than it was in his reflection.

James’s eyes met Q’s in the mirror, glinting with a wickedness that matched his slow smile.  “Sometimes I get it from first-hand pillow-talk.”  

This time, Q refused to react, although it took a massive force of will to keep his expression schooled.  He saw the responding glint of challenge in 007’s eyes, and spoke up to head the agent off at the pass, “So what did Agent Hart learn, then, from this friend-of-a-friend scenario?”

“Something about your brother mouthing off to people in power.”  James turned, paced the other way, his movements too purposeful to truly be called pacing.  “Accusations were made.  People were offended.  Does that sound like your brother?”

Groaning, Q pushed his fingertips up under his glasses and pressed them against his eyeballs.  “Yes.”  More to himself, he grumbled, “Sherlock, you idiot.”

007’s chuckle was a warm sound from two paces behind Q.  “My turn for a question?”

“Go for it,” Q muttered, still imagining Sherlock back-talking people with the power to have him executed - or, apparently, locked up indefinitely.  It took him a moment to realize that 007 hadn’t said anything yet, and that more than anything made the boffin suspicious.  He lowered his hands, looking up at the mirror again, finding the agent still behind him but favoring him now with a considering look.

Holding his ground in front of the mirror,  Q refused to show how unsettled he was now that he realized that he had a killer at his back.  The boffin also refused to turn around, instead watching as impassively as possible as 007 stalked with easy, lazy grace in the background.  The man slowly approached from behind, unexpectedly wrapping one hand around Q's shoulder.  Q tensed, but the grip was gentle, as was Bond’s other hand, which reached around to encircle Q’s waist.  Q’s breath caught, because up until now he’d have labeled his relationship with the unpredictable agent as 'tolerant at best.’  007 didn't mind the sudden breach of personal space, however, and met Q's eyes mischievously in the mirror as he snugged his chin over Q's shoulder.  Those dagger-blue eyes seemed to like whatever they saw in Q’s bespectacled hazel ones, although Q wasn’t sure how well he was hiding his surprise and fear by this point.  

A calloused hand traced from Q's shoulder down to his arm, finally gripping Q’s hand unexpectedly and raising it out in front of both of them.  "How would you like to be dangerous, Q?" 007 finally asked his question, voice low and husky - promising.  Q felt his breath catch.  Bond’s fingers folded around Q's as if grasping a gun, extending a scarred forefinger to form the barrel.  He pulled the 'trigger' at both of them in the mirror.  Those blue eyes promised so many things, and Bond's lips just brushed Q's ear, smiling, as he finished, "How would you like it if I were dangerous for _you_?  You’ve had a taste of danger, and you say you don’t like it, but maybe you’re just doing it wrong.  Maybe you need someone who’s an expert at that sort of thing."

Q dragged in a stuttering breath, his brain short-circuiting.  007 was a fearsome presence, almost shockingly solid and radiating a warm, living heat that made Q imagine for a fevered moment that he’d crawled up into James’s ribcage to nestle next to his kiln-shaped heart.  The man was devastating.  And the worst part was that his offer sounded sincere - and regardless of whether it was a total lie in reality, he was selling it like pure gold, impossible to ignore.  The power of suggestion was such that Q found himself involuntarily imagining what 007 was offering: with a man like 007 to shield him, Q could metaphorically walk through fire and know that he wouldn’t get burned.  It would be like having a guard-dog, a hunting hawk, a sentient gun sitting in his hands.  

Their joined hands were still hovering in front of them, and Q realized that this whole time he’d been staring fixedly down the make-believe barrel.  

Delayed reality hit Q like a bucket of ice-water, and he shuddered, mortified by the tendrils of temptation he could still feel slithering through his thoughts like silk ribbons.  Wisely, 007 backed away, being an old hand at reading body-language, no doubt.  The agent’s face was a mask, except for the tiny hint of a smile that was still in play.  “Think about it, Q,” he said as he retreated, “It’s a pity that genius like yours is held back by the fear of getting hurt, or getting your hands dirty - but I don’t have those fears.”

007 didn’t say anything more, just disappeared down the hall to the showers.  

Q was left standing, feeling like a puppet who’d just been played with and then had its strings cut - but the real problem was, he wasn’t sure whether or not he _had_ been played.  007 was a pathological liar; he’d said so himself.  But he’d also turned Q inside out and showed him a corner inside of himself that he hadn’t known had existed, or if it was even real, outside of James’s gilded words.  Q’s logical side didn’t believe Bond for a second… but his illogical side, the side that was still inflamed by the feeling of chapped lips brushing his ear with every word, kept replaying the agent’s promise over and over again.  

Because, one way or another, Q somehow doubted that this was a promise that high-Pass agents made to just anyone.

~^~

The next morning was heralded by a rare break in the weather, sunlight cutting back the clouds - and a strange visitor, a boat carrying something other than new recruits.  The Director-General of the Joint Security Service - operating out of the Centre for National Security, which essentially owned Eigengrau - was coming for official business.  The visitors represented people who outranked M, so everyone was somewhat evilly looking forward to seeing their boss have to handle a more submissive role.  

It was just a small group of visitors, lead by a small, slightly built man with short black hair, a high forehead, and eyes of such a dark brown that the iris seemed to get lost in the pupil.  “Call me C,” he introduced, following the peculiar formalities of naming that existed on Eigengrau.  His smile was perfectly bureaucratic as he reached out and shook Mallory’s hand, M’s grip nearly swallowing his.  Despite being so much smaller, however, the Director-General looked entirely confident and at home.  “I haven’t visited Eigengrau in person before - would you believe it?” he exclaimed with breathless excitement.  

M, naturally a very reserved man, resisted the urge to beetle his brows, and merely replied, “Considering your recent promotion to your position, I imagine you’ve had better things to do with your time than to make social calls.  Or is this more than a social call?”  M was nobody’s fool, and while he carefully kept suspicion out of his tone, he _was_ suspicious.  C had taken over the position of Director-General after the unfortunate death of his predecessor, and so far as Mallory could tell, no one had really had time to get a feel for the man yet.  Even without C’s unpredictable newness to consider, surprise visits from higher-ups were always cause for concern.

But C was quick to assure, waving a hand as if brushing away gnats, “Oh, no - noooo, there’s nothing more to this than me getting a feel for all the nooks and crannies of this new job.”  His smile was boyish and encouraged reciprocation, which was perhaps why Mallory felt the sudden urge to glower.  Anyone who worked around manipulative agents as much as he did gained a natural suspicion for any overt or pushy displays of friendliness.  Having no solid basis for his wariness, however, and because offending C would be career-suicide, Mallory shaped his mouth into a small smile.  

It was good enough.  

C went on to chatter about how _exceedingly unexpected_ he found the facilities - “I guess I expected some sort of _dungeon_.  What better place to hold monsters, after all, right?” - and self-deprecatingly commenting on all the facets of Eigengrau that he’d underestimated when he’d reviewed it on paper.  “This program really is incredible,” he stressed, drawing out ‘really’ as if M somehow wouldn’t get the point if he didn’t.  M was unsure if it was meant to be patronizing or if this was just C’s natural speech-pattern.  The two men and two women who’d come with C from the Centre for National Security didn’t seem to notice.  “I mean, you’ve literally got Britain's - dare I say the world’s - most dangerous men and women at your beck and call.  With the spreading of morality-enforcing AIs, I imagine that a lot of people envy you that power.”

“What power exactly are you referring to?”  Mallory was an old hat at political pussyfooting, and knew how to feel out the situation without also putting his foot in his mouth.  He kept his tone formal and offhand.  

“Holding the leashes to tigers, of course,” C said, with a confiding look as if Mallory should have already known this.  C looked ahead again, as they continued their tour of Eigengrau, walking down hall after hall.  C mused, “The Sybil System has made housecats of everyone, and while that has its benefits, there’s a certain envy to be felt in looking back at our wilder roots.  Eigengrau is like a zoo, only it can also choose to send its lions and tigers and bears out into the world now and then.”

M wasn’t sure where this was going, but some of the ideas he was hearing made him uneasy.  “I’m not sure there’s that much to envy,” he cautioned, political niceties be damned, “A zoo is just a gaol with a nicer name, and those tigers are kept under lock and key.”

“Exactly,” C agreed unexpectedly, then abruptly changed the subject and continued to talk like a jubilant fop.  

~^~

Harry Hart was playing a friendly game of chess with his Handler.  Congenial relationships between Hounds and Handlers were not altogether uncommon - they had to work together to be competent outside of Eigengrau, after all, and smart Hounds quickly realized that they lived longer, happier lives if they made friends with their Handlers.  Nevertheless, Harry had had a truly atrocious Handler before Roxy (a man named Arthur who’d ultimately suffered from a rapidly rising Psychopass, and had had to be retired prematurely), and was therefore particularly grateful for her good company.  She was a young girl, chatty, and sometimes still a bit naive for his tastes, but she could be depended upon to do her job on missions, and keep Harry’s interests in mind as well as her own.

She also had the most delightful ear for gossip.  

“Is that the Director-General?” Harry asked, glancing up just briefly from the chessboard.  He was winning, handily, but he had hopes that Roxy would get better at the game someday.  “I heard that he was visiting, but I’ll admit I thought he would be taller.”

“His predecessor was.  That’s the present Director-General, though, newly minted,” Roxy said, pouting down at the board.  Her nature was just a bit too impulsive for chess, but she knew that if she gave in and played chess with Harry, it would be easier to coax him into sparring with her later.  Some people frowned at sparring with one’s Hound, stating that it not only gave them insight into all of your fighting techniques but also gave them a convenient opportunity to hurt you, but Roxy did it anyway.  If there was anything she had learned about Harry Hart, it was that he was as much a gentleman as he was a killer.  When necessary he was capable of shooting a man without blinking, but unless Roxy were to try and kill him first, he was positively polite around her.  Sometimes she could get him to set that politeness aside and go a few rounds on the mats, an educational event that taught her quite a lot every time.  Instead of moving any of her pieces, she looked up from their spot in the common-room at the gaggle of officials on the catwalk above them, led by M and the Director-General.  She smirked and stifled a giggle, “God, it looks like M wants to shoot himself.  The Director-General must be a real bore.”

“Now now, it doesn’t do to insult our betters,” Harry chided, but Roxy could see - from an angle invisible to those above - that Harry was grinning wryly.  “You’re stalling,” he said a moment later, reminding  her of the board.  Roxy returned reluctantly to the game.  

Of course, by the next move, Roxy wanted to stall again, because this match was seriously not going in her favor.  So she asked, “Hey, have you met that new pilot?”

“The replacement for the murdered helicopter pilot?” Harry replied, unrattled by the subject matter, “No, I can’t say I have.  Why, is he good company?”

“Actually, you’d probably hate him,” Roxy said after a moment of considering it.  

Intrigued grey eyes shifted from the chessboard up to her face.  “Oh really?  I would, would I?” he asked mildly, dryly.  

This time, it seemed safer to play the game than to answer.  Roxy just shrugged, moved a piece, and then tried not to feel too devastated when Harry put her in checkmate.

~^~

Usually, Harry was a pragmatic man, not given to flights of fancy, but Roxy’s comment yesterday about the pilot had made him mildly curious - and what else did he have to do with his time?  In Harry’s opinion, it was the height of stupidity to ground this many high-Pass agents for this long, because the only thing that kept most of his fellows in line and out of trouble was constant business.  At this point, Harry had to admit that going on missions was even a bit fun.  He enjoyed the espionage facet immensely, and wasn’t opposed to a good fight if it came to that, and the feeling of accomplishment helped to settle something restless beneath his skin.  And Harry wasn't even the worst - most of the Hounds got cabin fever far sooner than Harry did, and it was something of a miracle that only two of them had been locked up so far.  It didn’t surprise Harry to know that Bond had been involved in the most recent altercation (007 was brash, unprincipled, and had an ego the size of Eigengrau), but the separate incident with Hannibal had been somewhat unexpected.  Harry didn’t know Hannibal all that well - no one did - but he knew enough to say that 003 was possibly the most patient man he’d ever met.  

“He should have been the last one to go stir-crazy,” Harry mused to himself, walking alone towards the west wing.  Ultimately, though, it wasn’t his business.  Sure, he didn’t believe for a second that Hannibal was guilty in this instance, but as a high-Pass agent, Harry knew that no one in power was liable to ask his opinion on the matter.  It was bloody frustrating, but it was just the way things were.  

So, with nothing better to occupy the time or take the edge off his restlessness, Harry meandered towards a part of the building rumor had it that this new fellow, ‘Oxford,’ was often seen in.  Harry had entirely too many skills for stalking people to let them go to waste just because he was off-mission…  And since Roxy was with Merlin, she’d never be the wiser.  

It had taken a bit of careful nosiness to find out where Oxford would be, but Harry was a patient man, and good at listening.  The fact that he often wore glasses and could pull off a paternal look helped, too.  Part of the benefits of cultivating a gentlemanly persona was that few employees were truly afraid of him - and those who _were_ nervous quickly loosened up with a bit of gentle small-talk.  The only Hound who socialized more rapidly was probably Harkness, but Harry cringed at his more flamboyant methods.  Regardless, it had taken only a day for Harry to feel out Oxford’s habits, and learn that the young man had a habit of walking alone down this way, as the day drew to a close.  He’d also learned that Oxford was young, gregarious, and spoke with an accent that made many people think that he was under-educated, and if that was why Roxy thought Harry wouldn’t like him, then he was going to have to have a polite chat with her.  

There was one unexpected bit of information that he’d gleaned, however, something that had nearly been enough to crack his benign, posh mask and show real shock beneath.  “The kid’s got some sort of pendant,” one of the cooks had said, reflecting on random facts about Oxford while serving Harry’s food at supper, “Don’ know what it means, but it’s like a circle in a circle, and then some pattern inside that.  Didn’t get a close look, but it was pretty.  Maybe you’ve seen somethin’ like it in your travels.  You agents are always going exotic places.”  

That was true, but when Harry had asked for more specifics about the description, he’d begun to suspect that this pendant wasn’t foreign at all.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  

The older agent paused in his walking, setting his foot down quietly and then freezing in place.  Head cocking, he listened to voices around the corner.  He quickly recognized an MLE accent that could be Oxford, but also another, a speaker he didn’t know by sound.  Interest piqued but heart rate still slow and steady, Harry looked around with a trained eye, found a likely place to go unnoticed, and then hid himself with unhurried, silent steps.  ‘Only fools rushed in,’ as the saying went, and Harry Hart was in no way a fool.  

The more  he listened, the more the MLE accent was familiar in a nagging sort of way, but Harry couldn’t place it.  Eigengrau had so many people and such a high turnover rate that he’d heard nearly every accent imaginable anyway, and not just British-based ones.  “Yeah, I’m ready.  I said I was, didn’t I?” that voice was saying, sounding tense, the consonants coming out even harder with frustration.  Oxford sounded very young.  

The other voice, older, lower, but also male, replied with more measured, untroubled speech, “Just checking.”

“Why?  You think I’m gonna chicken out?  That’s it, innit?” was the increasingly sharp reply.  Harry could hear the knife-edge in those words, and it made him narrow his eyes.

“Of course not,” the other answered smoothly, but Harry recognized the edge on those words, too: no anger this time, but a calmer threat, like a cold scalpel.  Harry frowned, because it was a tone he usually would have expected to hear from high-Pass agents,  articulate yet immorally cold in a way that few people with a Psychopass below one-hundred were.  The unseen man finished lightly, “Because you know that as bad as things look now, they’ll look much, much worse if you don’t play your part.  Good night, _Oxford_.”

The sound of retreating footsteps filled the quiet, quickly fading to nothing.  Harry held his ground, though, knowing that moving too quickly could flush his game prematurely.  His patience paid off just seconds later as he heard an explosive curse, revealing that the younger fellow - probably the pilot, Oxford, was still there.  It took a few beats, but he started walking, too, in the opposite direction of his threatening companion, towards Harry.  The agent held his position, confident that he was in shadow, tucked away in the doorway of an unused, open side-room.  

He saw the boy’s silhouette first - not a large chap, probably shorter than Harry, lighter, too.  It wasn’t until Oxford walked further and the lighting changed, however, that Harry’s breath caught quietly in his chest.  Sharp slashes of eyebrows above clear hazel eyes, a familiar jawline leading to a slightly cleft chin - the resemblance wasn’t perfect, but it was uncanny, especially when combined with the pendant he could see resting against the pilot’s Eigengrau-issued shirt.  

Harry had had a pendant just like that.  Before he’d been arrested and brought to Eigengrau for having a dangerously high Psychopass.  

Usually capable of standing still for hours, not moving a muscle even under duress, Harry had to struggle not to break his cover as Oxford - which was most definitely not this boy’s name - slouched past, hands in pockets and shoulders defensively rounded.  After the pilot had made it a few strides down the hall, however, Harry stepped smoothly out.  He faced the back of the boy’s head squarely, and said in a calm but clarion tone that he knew from experience carried like a dinner bell, “Oxford, is it?  As in…”  He let that silence hang for just a second, even as he watched the boy freeze in his tracks.  “... ‘Oxfords Not Brogues’?”

“Fuck,” the boy spat, spinning, his eyes wide with alarm.  He had to still be in his mid-twenties, and all Harry could think was that he was far too young for the inside of Eigengrau’s walls.  “Did you just melt out of the fucking shadows?” the pilot demanded exasperatedly.

It was reflexive to chide, “Manners,” even as Harry’s brain was working at a rapid pace, trying to figure out what this all meant.  

“Isn’t it good manners to introduce yourself instead of just sneaking up on a bloke?” was the whip-fast retort.  

Harry raised a measured brow, then dipped his head in a polite nod that conceded the point.  “Of course.”  He nodded a bit deeper, almost a bow, perfectly measured to appear gracious.  “Harry Hart.”

“The pleasure’s all yours,” the boy grumbled back, wariness coming off him in waves.  “Now I suppose you want my name, that right?”

“Actually, what I’m more interested in,” Harry said as he began to step forward slowly but steadily, “is where you got that pendant.”  He watched the way Oxford, or whatever his name was, shifted his balance and angled his body, telegraphing a strong desire to bolt.  

“Why you wanna know?” Oxford tossed back like a challenge.  Harry raised an eyebrow again, reevaluating his measure of the boy’s courage as balanced with his defensive body-language.  

“Because-”  Harry stopped talking, having calculated correctly when the pilot would move.  The only reason that Harry was prepared for an attack rather than an escape was the last-minute glint he’d seen in the boy’s keen eyes.  Harry met it, sweeping the young man’s first punch to the side, and gripping onto the wrist as it passed.  It was actually only as he did this that he saw the small knife protruding from the boy’s hand, well hidden, but with more than enough blade extended to do some damage.  Harry used his grip, and the boy’s momentum, to swing Oxford into the wall.  It was a not entirely unpleasant surprise when Oxford didn’t give up, even when Harry’s full weight was pushing his face into the wall and his knife-hand was disabled.  Harry had to weather a well-aimed elbow to his ribs, absorbing the blow with a grunt before leisurely finishing his sentence, “-I happen to know everyone I have ever given one of those to, and for your sake, I hope you’re one of them.  I can’t abide by thieves.  So tell me…”  It took just a moment to cast back in his memory, recalling another young man, another set of clear eyes - snuffed out while saving Harry’s life.  The pendant had gone to the man’s young son.  “Are you Gary Unwin?”

The pilot stopped struggling.  “Oh, shit.”

At first, Harry smiled, because that was as good as an answer - and he already knew he was right.  Gary Unwin was a dead ringer for his father, even if Harry couldn’t parse out what the devil the boy was doing here, now, conversing with dangerous-sounding men in the heart of Eigengrau.  

It turned out that the soft expletive had nothing to do with being found out, however.

Because right then, everything went dark.

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did I mention that this isn't just a nice story where Q slips in, befriends 007, and then rides off into the sunset with James and Sherlock in tow? *innocent face* 
> 
> Now the real story begins


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit is well and truly hitting the fan, and Q is in the middle of it...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I heard that Daniel Craig will be playing James Bond one last time - I figured that I should celebrate with a chapter ;)
> 
> And don't forget to check out my [casting pics page](https://wordpress.com/page/only1truthfanfiction.wordpress.com/358) as new characters are added, just in case there are some faces you don't know! I just updated it today to reflect Chapter 21 (I've written 21 chapters so far, and tossed it to my lovely team of beta readers).

10 minutes earlier: Q-branch

~^~

Now that all of the agents had Smartblood, Q was beginning to realize that Q-branch was meant to be a nine-to-five job.  Everyone arrived after breakfast and left before supper, which grated on Q’s workaholic tendencies, but it also meant that he’d have time to work on freeing Sherlock.  It was perfect, really, because now that Q had learned from 007 where Sherlock was - an encounter that still made the boffin shiver, although he wasn’t entirely certain it was from fear anymore - he needed some alone-time to figure out what to do next.  

So now, with Q-branch devoid of everyone - even H - Q was working quietly on the problem in one of the back cubicles.  He’d purposefully left the lights off when he’d returned to Q-branch after supper, and instead of holing up in his office where people would think to look for him, he brought his laptop over to someone else’s cubicle, keeping the screen light turned down low.  The laptop, like every other piece of technology in Eigengrau, was connected to the Eigengrau networks and therefore very well-guarded against hacking, but now that Q had precise knowledge about his brother’s location, he felt confident that he could bypass the necessary firewalls.  He worked carefully, however, just in case he was wrong, and so was still there, hours later, when the main door to Q-branch opened.  

During regular hours, when the branch was heavily populated with personnel, the doors would let just about anyone in; now, though, it should have been set so that only personnel with the appropriate codes could get in, so Q  was mildly curious but not particularly worried.  He’d have to explain why he was using Simon Runkle's cubicle, of course, but he thought that he could do that without too much trouble.  After all, he was apparently a pretty skilled liar when he was dealing with anyone but 007.  Hoping that it wasn’t Runkle walking in right now, Q peered up over the edge of the cubicle cautiously.  

When multiple silhouettes filed in and no one turned on any lights, however, Q felt the blood in his veins go cold.  

Only once the door was closed again did Q hear a newly familiar voice say, “All right, let’s get some lights on in here!”  The arrival of lights showed that the speaker was, of all people, the Director-General, and that he had about seven other individuals with him, one of whom was using a chair to jam the doors shut against anyone else entering.  They hadn’t turned on all the lights, leaving Q’s portion of the room in shadow, but he still ducked down below the edge of the cubicle desk as nameless fear washed through him.  Something was very, very wrong here.  

Q had recognized some of the other people with C as part of the entourage that had arrived with the man, but there were others that Q swore were regular employees of Eigengrau - or new recruits, whose faces he was only just starting to recognize.  Even worse, he saw Root, _sans_ Handler.  He was also positive that he’d seen guns on them, even though C’s group, at least, had not been armed when they’d come by earlier in the day for a tour of Q-branch.  Now, looking back, Q thought that C had been entirely too interested in how things worked down here, especially as the bespectacled young man began to hear keys tapping.  Still not sure what was going on, Q quietly turned down the light on his laptop screen as low as it would go to remove as much glow as possible, and opened up another program - it took him only a few moments to remotely connect to the only other computer in the area that was online.  With a few more carefully hushed double-taps on the touchpad, he activated the other computer’s camera.  Immediately, Q had an image of C’s dark, dark eyes and rabidly triumphant expression on his screen.  Q’s breath caught before he reminded himself that this wasn’t a video call - the man on the other end couldn’t see him, but clearly was interested in something.  A few more commands showed Q the same screen that C was seeing, and what he saw had him sucking in another swift, soft breath.

C was a hacker.  A good one.  Q could tell that by the programs that were up and running on the screen, a veritable beehive of digital activity.  These were programs that only Q-branch and a few other facilities on Eigengrau had access to, although to truly meddle with any of them, some firewalls would have to be messily knocked down.  Chin on hand, Q tried to figure out what C was doing before he remembered that this laptop had a touch-screen. Bringing up the virtual keyboard, he silently typed up and sent a quick message to Security: “Unauthorized personnel in Q-branch.  Send assistance.”

As soon as Q sent it, however, he realized that Security should have been tracking all of the high-Pass agents’ signals.  If Root was here, then either people had been alerted already, or there was no one in Security in any condition to be alerted.  The thought chilled Q to his bones, and his hand began to shake.    

A millisecond before the man’s mouth moved on the video feed, Q heard C call out lazily, “How are things coming along on that machine of yours, hmm?”

For a panicked second, Q thought C was talking to him, but then Root responded, “I’ll have her purring like a kitten in just a minute.”  Her smooth voice made it sound like she was talking to a lover, gentle and sweet.  “If anything, I should be asking if _you_ need help.  You doing okay, sweetheart?”

“Oh, I think I can manage,” C murmured back with a grin so lopsided it was like part of his face wasn’t responding, making the expression supremely unsettling.  And looking at C’s hacking work, he definitely didn’t need any help.  As Q watched, what had to be a premade virus was let loose on the computers; it was something that Q would have employed himself if he’d been able to smuggle it in.  Unfortunately, even Quartermasters didn’t have _carte blanche_ the way Director-Generals apparently did.  The virus began spreading and eating its way into firewalls at an alarming rate, and Q had to open up a few more programs just to track and analyze it as fast as he could.  Q sent another message, this one to M’s office and then to his personal number, which Q  wasn’t supposed to have.  If the man was on duty or off, Q wanted him to know that something was happening - something bad - and that parts of Security might already be compromised.  

That was the last message Q managed to send before he realized something: the virus was masterful work, like a highly advanced and useful plague.  And like a plague, it was spreading to any victim it came in contact with… and all of the systems at Eigengrau were interconnected.  

Q almost swore out loud, and only just managed to keep his scrambling quiet.  His own computer was already infected - it was connected to the main server.  Q had his tablet with him, though, and since it was turned off…  it was clean.  The problem was, it was also useless, because everything in Eigengrau ran through those same, infected systems-

And right then, C made a sound of triumph as his virus chewed through enough firewalls to give him facility-wide access.  

C began to shut things down.  Q watched through his computer, horrified, as power, wifi, even emergency systems were turned off.  Q’s laptop was already showing signs of being affected by the virus , and he felt himself hyperventilating as he admitted to himself that there was already nothing he could do.  

“There!  Got it,” Root said with deep satisfaction.  He heard her tapping something metallic, presumably her machine.  “She’s running.  The interference should keep anyone from activating these pesky collars, even if we’re right on top of them when they push the button.”  

 _Shit_.  This was planned out.  Very planned out.  The collars were probably the only system that C wouldn’t have been able to remotely hack, because it was too dangerous for agents in the field - it was useful for a Handler to be able to put down an agent if necessary, but not for an enemy operative to hack the signal that could kill the Hound that was hunting them.  But if C and his people had some sort of signal jammer strong enough to prevent anyone in the building from connecting to the collars, then the watch on everyone’s wrist was suddenly only good for keeping the time.  

But… the Hounds still couldn’t get their collars off.  Q realized that that was another system yet again, and one that couldn’t be resolved by a souped-up signal-jammer.  Suddenly recognizing that maybe there _was_ something he could do, Q closed his laptop - practically dead now, so sick that the screen was fuzzing out and freezing - and carefully slipped his satchel (holding his tablet) across his chest.  He cast back in his photographic memory for where H had put the little device that could unlock collars.  

“The lights have been turned down, the curtains are drawn,” C said, filling the quiet while Q slipped, bent low, through the shadows, “I think it’s time for the main show to begin, don’t you?”  There were murmurs of agreement, and Q paused at a workbench nervously.  After just a moment’s thought, he took the blow torch that someone had been using on a project earlier in the day, as well as the box of matches next to it.  H was paranoid about that kind of thing, being of the mind that guns and ammo should be locked away separately, but Q had never been happier to find these two things in the same place.  

Q startled as he heard a crackle above his head, taking a second to realize that C had left power to just one thing: the building-wide intercom system.  Now he was making good use of it, the tone of his voice rising into a high and unsettling singsong as he crowed, “Helloooooo there everybody!  Hopefully I’m not interrupting anything - although what’s there to interrupt?”  His laugh was wild and gleeful, and then his voice shifted suddenly to a wild roar, “Because everything is _shut down_!”  After a pause in which Q froze midstep, afraid of being heard if he moved, C went on again, flipping like a switch back to calm.  “If any of you haven’t figured it out already, this is a takeover.  I know, I know, it’s so sudden, but I think that’s the best - like ripping off a band-aid.  Get it over with quickly.”  

Q was no longer as much in shadow as he’d have liked, but he’d reached the desk he wanted - H’s desk.  It had a locked drawer, but Q had the key, and he waited for C to speak again so that no one would hear the light grinding of the pins in the lock.  

“I’m sure that some of you are asking, now, _whyyyy_ take over what is basically a big _zoo_?”  Q had no idea why C was emphasizing the word ‘zoo’ with such vehemence, but by this point, he was pretty sure that C was a few eggs short of a dozen.  C went on, low and vicious and dramatic, “Who would take over a zoo?  Hmm.  It’s easy, really - someone who cares about the magnificent creatures caged up in that zoo.”

Q had the drawer open, and soon had the collar-key in hand.  He slipped it into a secure pouch in his satchel made specifically for carrying small gadgets like this, even as he began to slowly register what C was saying.  He imagined that his dawning horror was not unlike the effect of seeing a tidal wave roaring down upon a beach, inescapable.

“So you see, this message is for the Hounds.  You probably haven’t noticed, but your collars are harmless now - just bands of metal.  No one can kill you with them,” C had grown more impassioned, more delighted, but sobered enough to add in a suddenly low tone, “And if you want them taken off, then you’ll meet me at Helicopter Pad C, where you can decide: stay here like a tiger in a cage, or come with me and… explore more employment options.  I guarantee I pay better.  Don’t believe me?  How about a familiar voice?”  

There was the sound of C’s chair rolling back followed by Root’s voice purring over the intercom, heard by all of Eigengrau, “If you were waiting for a ringing endorsement, here it is.  I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty tired of being collared and kenneled like a dog.  Sorry, Fusco.”  Q recalled that that was the name of her Handler.  Root actually sounded vaguely regretful, but only in the shallowest of ways, and he could imagine her pretty pout, her dangerously cold eyes above it.    

C rolled back to the microphone, finishing up the narrative, “That’s my offer - take it or leave it.  I’m sure you have a lot to think about.”

“And a lot of people to _discuss_ it with,” Root chimed in, her voice close enough that the speaker still picked it up - right down to the violent edge sewn into the word ‘discuss.’  These were the types of discussion that ended in blood and a dead body or two, and Q picked up his pace towards the nearest exit, realizing that he was watching the equivalent of a bomb going off.  Insanity and destruction would soon follow.  

“I’ll give you… oh… how about three days to think about it, starting at dawn tomorrow?  Help isn’t coming, and Eigengrau is literally its own little world, so why rush?  Christ  rose from the dead in three days, coincidentally, for those of you who subscribe to that myth,” C elaborated spiritedly.  All Q could hear was: three days of bloodbath.  It would be a purge.  While the employees of Eigengrau outnumbered the Hounds fifteen-to-one, a large number of those employees were just pencil-pushers, secretaries, tech-analysts, maintenance - and one Hound was dangerous enough to take on absolutely monstrous odds and still come out on top, bloodsoaked.  To make matters worse, the guards were used to hunting in packs and coordinating their numbers through radio, phone, and the very same intercom C was using, but Q was willing to bet that C had knocked out all of those means of communication.  Everyone was on their own, except for those people they were already with.  The high-Pass agents, on the other hand, were solitary hunters.  They worked best alone - specialized in it, actually, Handlers notwithstanding.  

And then C suddenly put the fucking cherry on top: “Oh, one last thing I _just_ remembered.  I heard you locked up one of your agents because he committed a murder.  Well, guess what?  It wasn’t him!”  Q froze as the wild laughter rolled around the room like a storm, amplified by the speakers but also coming directly from the man across the room.  C calmed down to add in an excited tone, “So I let the agent go.  Wasn’t that nice of me?  Freeing the innocent?”

 _Fuck_.  Hannibal was free.  Q’s blood had permanently frozen in his veins.   

“I now return you to your regular programming,” C humorously mocked.  Q, no longer able to hide his every sound, scrambled faster towards the door.  

He almost sensed the eyes that turned toward him before a new voice called out, collected and low and male, “Someone else is in here.  Heading for the door.  Go!”  

There was a whole room of desks and cubicles in the way, but it still didn’t feel like enough as Q clutched his satchel to keep it from jouncing, and bolted flat-out for the door.  He all but ran into it, skidding and scrambling with the handle, already hearing feet behind him.  The last thing he heard before he quit Q-branch and escaped into the lightless hall was C chuckling self-assuredly, “Don’t worry, Seb will handle it.  That’s what he’s here for - to remove things that get in my way.”  And C catcalled into the speakers one more time, “Run, boy! Run!  The game is afoot!” followed by delighted laughter.  

~^~

“Sir!”  Ianto’s voice was so familiar that Mallory could have recognized him in the midst of any chaos - even the chaos they were all facing now: the siege of Eigengrau.  Mallory had been in his personal quarters, but of course Ianto would appear there as if by magic.  “Sir, there’s a load of people coming, and I don’t think they’re friendly.”   

“After that lunatic’s little speech, I’m not feeling very friendly myself,” Mallory seethed quietly, but strapped on his shoulder-holster.  His steely grey eyes flicked over the weapon, hands going through the process of checking it efficiently.  He hadn’t found time to fire it in weeks, but he hoped that wasn’t long enough to get out of practice.  Absently noting that the perimeter lights warning ships away had not failed as pale, orange-hued light filtered in the windows and gleamed on the gun beneath his fingers, he recalled that their power systems were separate, for exactly this reason.  “You should get going,” he encouraged, glancing at the younger man in the doorway.  

His secretary gave him a deadpan look, tipping his head and looking up from under his raised eyebrows.  “You’re serious.”

“I’m serious that there’s a mob of high-Pass agents headed this way, and that I’ve got the biggest target painted on my back because I know the codes to open up their collars,” Mallory retorted shortly, holstering the gun and dragging on a coat over it.  The heating must have gone out with the power; it was already getting cooler.  “The Hounds’ collars might not be working right now, but I bet a month’s vacation that they didn’t turn them off permanently - if those agents leave this island, and any of us catch up with them, we’ll be able to end them with the push of a button.”

“In that case, we might have a problem.”

“Besides a score of killers closing in?  Lead by the bloody Director-General?” Mallory couldn’t help but snark back bad-temperedly as he fished for his extra ammunition, stuffing it into pockets.  

“Well, as much as they need you for your codes, they need the keys to open the collars, too,” Ianto finished, unfazed by his boss’s tone, although the whites of his eyes showed that he was, indeed, afraid right now.  He produced something from a pocket: a familiar little device shaped like a flashdrive.  Ianto finished morosely, “This is one, but that leaves two unaccounted for.”

“One in my office…” Mallory grimaced, wishing that he were more paranoid.  Up until now, though, it had seemed safer to keep it in a locked strongbox than on his person - which now seemed stupid.  

“And one in Q-branch,” Ianto finished.

Mallory remembered the messages that he’d received on his phone, just minutes before everything had gone to shit.  He froze.  

Ianto shifted nervously.  “What is it?”  

“C and Root are in Q-branch,” Mallory said hollowly, and when Ianto’s eyes grew huge, M went on, dragging a hand hurriedly over his face and trying to think, “Q was there, too, and tried to raise the alarm, but I think that that bastard, C, must have had men attack Security first.  He’s also got men on the inside, because a coup like this would take more people than those he came here with.”

“Wait, if Q was in Q-branch,” Ianto went on, proving why he had this job, and M’s ear - he was quick-minded, “then was he the one they were…?”  

Both men were thinking about the last words they’d heard jeering through the intercom: ‘ _Run, boy! Run!…_ ’  

“We don’t know that they were chasing down Q,” Mallory said soberly, but he didn’t believe it.  No.  He _couldn’t_ believe it.  The head of Eigengrau straightened.  “There’s a chance that Q has the other key.  He’s not stupid - he’d be aware of its importance.”  Noises of shouting further down the hall made both men turn their heads like stags hearing the distant baying of hounds.  “And either way, we can’t worry about that, because Q-branch is halfway across the entirety of Eigengrau.”

“Here.”  Ianto seemed to come to some decision, approaching and passing the collar-key over to M.  The older man noticed immediately that despite his outwardly calm appearance, Ianto’s hands were shaking violently.  But the young secretary nonetheless stepped back, towards the door, saying stalwartly, “You take that, and I’ll go get the other key from your office.  I know the combination to the lockbox.”

“That’s a suicide run,” Mallory informed him bluntly to dissuade him.

Ianto smiled a watery little half-smile, starting to look as afraid as he felt, no doubt.  But he wasn’t letting it stop him yet.  “Not with you running off in another direction.  At the very least, it’ll distract everyone, split their forces.  Not that I want to use you as bait, sir,” he finished congenially.  

Suddenly, Mallory couldn’t help the fierce grin that stretched across his face.  “I keep underestimating you,” he commented, something he’d said a few times since hiring the baby-faced young secretary with the impressive resume and magical coffee-making skills.  

“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir.”  Ianto turned to make way for Mallory at the door

As they both slipped out to make their escapes, Mallory laid a hand on Ianto’s shoulder before they could separate.  “Take it as an incentive to survive.  You don’t look threatening, and I don’t think C saw your face upon his arrival, meaning you’re anonymous, so long as you don’t deal with any Eigengrau employees ...”  Mallory pressed something into Ianto’s hand: a knife and an ankle sheath.  Before Ianto could protest, looking at the blade as if it might bite him, M insisted, “Don’t try to strap it on - just carry it.  And don’t hesitate to use it.”  Mallory squeezed Ianto’s fingers closed around the weapon with a crushing grip, desperately hoping that he’d see this boy alive at the end of this, but knowing that it was out of his hands.  He finished, “Because you can bet that those against us aren’t going to hesitate to kill _you_.”

Hoping that his last sentence would scare Ianto just enough to get him to defend himself, Mallory stepped out into the hall, gauging where the noise was coming from, and shouting in that direction, “Are you looking for the head of Eigengrau?  Well you found me, you filthy cocksucking bastards!  Now come and get me!”  Wasting no more time, he darted off down a side hallway, away from any of the living quarters, avoiding any collateral damage as he led the human equivalent of a pack of rabid wolves through the building.  

His last glance was of Ianto’s wide-eyed, young, scared face before the Welshman ran off in the opposite direction, swift and silent.  

~^~

“What the _hell_ is going on?” Harry growled, all semblance of gentlemanliness gone as he kept his grip on Gary - or Oxford, or whoever the fuck he was - and pulled him back just to slam him against the wall again.  The youth writhed against the hand on his shirt-collar and the other on his wrist, bending his arm up behind his back.  The knife had long-since fallen to the floor to be kicked away.

“It’s - It’s what he said,” the pilot panted, expression hard to read in the dark but voice appropriately strained, “on the intercom.  It’s a coup.”

“And you’re part of it,” Harry guessed stonily.  He watched as the boy nodded, cheek against the wall.  Slowly regaining his composure, when he spoke again, the agent’s voice was smooth and cool like the skin of a snake, “I suggest you explain what you know while I still have the patience to listen to it.”

“Why?” the boy had the gall to gasp back, the glint of his eyes opening and turning back to Harry in the dark showing surprise.  “You’re one of ‘em, ain't you?  A high-Pass agent, like them that C’s offering freedom to?”

“I am, but I’m cynical enough not to trust an offer from what is obviously a madman,” Harry drawled jadedly.

Surprisingly, the boy chuckled, very faintly.  “You ain’t wrong.  C’s mad as a sack of cats.”  

“And yet you work for him?”

This time the pause was followed by grudging answer of, “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”

“Gary,” Harry said, because he truly did think this was Gary Unwin, the son of the man who’d died for Harry so many years ago, “it might have skipped your attention, but it’s a very poor idea to go about antagonizing a man with a Psychopass of one-hundred and thirty.”  At the same time, he pushed the pilot’s arm higher up his back, almost between his shoulder-blades.  The careful application of pressure made the pilot tense and gasp, and Harry reflexively calculated how much further he could go before the shoulder popped out of its socket.  “Don’t play games when you don’t have the upper hand,” he suggested seriously.  

“Name’s _Eggsy_.  And maybe-” the boy’s breath puffed out, and his teeth gleamed white as he bared them in discomfort, but then kept doggedly talking, “-I've more of an upper hand than you think, guv.”  

Without warning, Harry felt Eggsy’s foot hook behind his ankle.  It was so unexpected that the agent was flooded with surprise, and reacted with only a fraction of his normal speed, as Eggsy bucked hard at the same time that he pulled at Harry’s ankle with his.  They both went toppling over backwards, landing on the floor in an ungainly heap as Harry failed to catch his balance.  

Reflexes died hard, and it was instinct for Harry to let go of Eggsy and attempt to stop his own fall instead.  Therefore, the boy was able to twist loose, but Harry also wasn’t completely winded by the landing.  As Eggsy bounced to his feet with all the sprightliness of youth, Harry followed suit a bit more slowly, but only because he was calculating his options, judging distances, and deciding whether or not he could stomach killing the son of an old friend.  Contrary to popular belief, a high Psychopass, in Harry’s experience, did not mean a total lack of morals or regret - it simply meant that those two things followed a different, unique set of rules that society didn’t know how to understand.  

The fact that Eggsy had located his knife again didn’t help matters.  

Still, Harry made a decision.  “Eggsy,” he said, firm like iron but not threatening, just as he saw the boy’s body tense to turn and run.  As he’d predicted - hoped - the pilot froze at the unexpected use of his name.  It wasn’t the title that Harry remembered, but the boy certainly answered to it.

“I don’t nark.  So you can keep asking questions all you want, but I’m not gonna tell you nothing,” the boy said stubbornly.  He was clearly still torn between facing the danger - Harry - and running, but already the boy had attacked once rather than run, and now his hands were balled into fists, switchblade protruding once more from his right.  Harry rather thought Eggsy meant what he said, too, about not giving out information.  He remembered that same loyalty from the elder Unwin, and felt a little flare of melancholy in his heart at the memory.  

“So I’ll just be wasting my breath?” Harry made conversation as he thought.  He made his posture relaxed, stance easy, and even looked away from Eggsy to brush himself off a little.  

“Yup,” was the stubborn, succinct answer.  

Harry sighed, “Well, that’s a shame,” and then committed himself to the action to follow.  While not a spry young buck like Eggsy, or even like some of the newer Hounds, Harry was ferociously fast, and more than that, he was a man who knew precisely how his body worked and how to control it.  Young men could lop off a head with pure strength and a sword, but Harry had the control to kill a man with a pin precisely because he knew how and where to apply a fraction of his speed and strength, yet still get the same results.  That was one of the reasons that Harry Hart so rarely saw eye to eye with James Bond - for James, fighting was a melee, a struggle of bodies and a clashing of power, but to Harry, it was a dance, one in which he’d spent most of his lifetime learning the steps to perfection.  

When Harry rushed Eggsy, he could see the precise moment when the boy realized that Harry was a lot faster than he expected him to be.  Harry smiled a little bit, taking that as a compliment - he wasn’t an old man, and hated it when people assumed that he was of a retiring nature.  Eggsy had just enough time to gasp, “Oh, shhhhit-” before Harry was on him.  It was a surprise, therefore, when Eggsy managed to block the first punch, albeit sloppily.  Harry adjusted, machinelike, and felt his next punch connect solidly with Eggsy’s ribs - but he wasn’t ready for the feeling of very real regret he endured when the boy pivoted with a noise of pain.  The boy was tough, though, tough in a way that someone his age really shouldn’t have been, and when Harry pulled his next punch, Eggsy came back harder, knife leading.  The boy was truly fearless, which Harry usually regarded as a terribly stupid trait, but he remembered Eggsy’s father having the same reckless spirit - it was what had made him memorable, made him worthwhile.  Harry could see the almost rabid will to survive burning in Eggsy’s eyes, too, even as Harry swerved out of the way of the first wild slash.  

Changing tactics, Harry deflected Eggsy’s next blow and then swept the boy’s legs out from under him.  Eggsy landed hard, but still found breath to curse before rolling over quickly.  Harry didn’t follow through, instead using the time to remove his tie, already planning his next move.  As in chess, he preferred to be at least three steps ahead.  He circled idly until Eggsy scrambled to his feet, then raised an expectant eyebrow as angry, forthright eyes glared bloody murder at him.  

“You could always just choose to cooperate,” Harry allowed.  

Eggsy shook his head, bull-like, circling in time to Harry.  “I don’t nark.”

“You clearly don’t like these people,” Harry tried again, seeking a logical way through this that wouldn’t require him to beat this boy to a pulp.  

“Yeah, well…”  Eggsy spat to one side, a clear sign of his contempt.  His eyes never left Harry, though; smart boy.  “When I give me word, I give me word, even to utter arseholes.”

Harry sighed deeply, being careful not to draw attention to the tie he still held in his left hand.  “I figured I owed it to your father to at least ask one more time,” he said with real regret.  

Eggsy’s brows beetled, expression going almost adorably questioning.  “Wait, what about my dad-?”  This time when Harry came at him, Eggsy immediately snapped his mouth shut and threw his all into responding - which was exactly what Harry had been hoping for.  The older man’s first jab was a feint, and when Eggsy enthusiastically responded, Harry - tie clasped between his hands like a silken rope - intercepted the blow.  Binding up Eggsy’s knife-hand, Harry was able to pivot, pull, and _feel_ that bone-deep sense of satisfaction as his opponent’s balance was compromised.  Eggsy gave a wordless yelp, and Harry neatly stuck out a leg and tripped him to speed up his fall.  This time, Harry was done playing games, and before Eggsy could recover enough to move, Harry straddled him.  It was but the work of seconds to bind up Eggsy’s hands in the tie, despite the boy’s cursing and struggling.  Harry considered the switchblade (a well-looked-after piece, clearly, and more than serviceable) for a moment before tucking it into his own pocket for safekeeping.

“I did give you the option of the easy way out, twice,” Harry reminded mildly, “I was quite reasonable.  There’s something going on, and I want to know the details, but it was up to you to either give me those details or force me to take them.”

“Fuck you.”

Harry was about to reply with something about manners when a sound caught his attention - something beyond the scuffling noise of Eggsy, on his belly and stuck there under Harry’s weight, trying to wriggle free.  He immediately straightened and stiffened, then reached forward to find Eggsy's head, fingers slipping past soft, thick hair and quickly clamping down over the boy’s mouth.  Harry felt wetness from what could only be blood, and recalculated for a second just how hard Eggsy had hit the floor with Harry’s tie around his wrist preventing him from breaking his fall properly.  Most of Harry’s attention was fixated down the hall, however, where he thought he heard people coming - drawn to the noise.  

“There are people coming, Eggsy,” Harry returned his attention to the boy now lying tensely still beneath him.  He spoke softly but efficiently, “There’s a chance that they’re your people, but it’s equally likely that they are other high-Pass agents like myself, drawn to the sound of fighting like sharks to blood.  It _is_ a habit, amongst my kind.”  He felt Eggsy’s back go stiff beneath him, the reality of the danger sinking in.  “I don’t know about you, but I think it might be safest to get moving, hm?”  

Harry probably would have been safe regardless.  He’d heard the intercom - he knew that the collar he’d feared and despised for years was now harmless.  True, high-Pass agents were more likely to kill each other than ally together, but he wasn’t worried about being outmatched by another Hound.  He’d seen most all of them fight, and wasn’t boasting when he said that only a handful posed him any threat.  

Eggsy, however, was clearly scared enough now to be thinking just in terms of himself - which was what Harry had been counting on.  He waited, counting the seconds as danger drew nearer, until he felt Eggsy give a little shudder, a hesitant twitch of his head, and finally a nod against Harry’s palm.  

“Good,” 005 said cheerily, letting go of the boy’s mouth to instead grip him by the upper arms while he himself flowed smoothly to his feet.  Hauling Eggsy up took a bit of effort - if he hadn’t known already, he could feel by pure muscle-weight that Eggsy was fit.  Still holding onto one of Eggsy’s elbows, Harry met the boy’s slightly wild eyes once they were both on their feet.  “Let’s go for a walk then, shall we?  We can save discussions about your secrets - and your father - for a more appropriate time.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now begins the game of finding answers... that and surviving. Survival is important, too. When I was writing the first part of this chapter, I was listening to Wood Kid's ['Run Boy Run'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eje2r90MkGE), and I think that Q's got a bit of running to do now - because Eggsy might have found a sympathetic ear, but Q's got wolves on his tail...


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q's in trouble, and wildly in need of an ally; Eggsy is in trouble, but isn't sure who to trust. Both of then, in the meanwhile, are still badasses. 
> 
> Hannibal, on the other hand, has no particular issues with any of this and no moral quandaries at this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far, I have a total of 26 chapters written for this story - but keep in mind, that's 90,000 words that my betas still have to go through! They're gods and goddesses of the editing world, but out of respect for their social lives, I'm going to be posting just once a week from now on :) School has also just started for me, so I now have no social life -_- *sigh*

Q had two advantages over his pursuers: a photographic memory of the map of Eigengrau and a blowtorch.  His knowledge of the facility allowed him to lose at least some of his foes in the twists and turns of the halls, and Q clutched his satchel close to his chest now like a child as he struggled to keep the image of that blueprint in the forefront of his mind.  He eventually ended up in a room with a manual lock - most of Eigengrau's doors were electronic, meaning the rooms were sealed or opened via electronic keypads, which were now perpetually unlocked thanks to C.  This room, though, was old-school.  Engaging the lock, Q stood in pitch blackness, panting for breath, wondering if anyone had seen him enter-

Suddenly, the door behind him shook under the impact of a body, doorknob rattling violently.  Q’s bolthole had definitely been noticed then.  Unable to see and realizing that running probably wasn’t an option anymore - even if this room had another exit that he could find, Q’s legs were shaking and weak from exertion - Q felt around in his bag until he came out with the blowtorch and matches.  He quickly turned the knob, starting the stream of flammable gas, and fumbled out just one match, lighting it after a few misses in the dark.  In that instant nothing was so beautiful as that little teardrop of fiery light - and then it got better when he used that flame to ignite the blowtorch, a decidedly more respectable flame.  

By this point, the pounding and yelling on the other side of the door was almost deafening, and then there was the sound of wood splintering.  Much of Eigengrau was made of either concrete or steel, but some of the less important rooms had been made more cheaply.  Now that Q had light, he could see that this was a storage space with spare office chairs and tables pushed against the walls - things that didn’t exactly need strong security which explained the manual lock, but it meant that the very determined people on the other side of the door were going to break through at any second.  

Steeling his nerves, still sucking in deep gulps of air to satisfy his aching lungs, Q tucked the remaining matches away and approached the door with his blowtorch, the flame a tendril of blue tinged a vicious yellow at its tip.  Q turned up the gas on the torch, grimly watching the flame lengthen and brighten like a pale, hungry tongue.  He removed his satchel, setting it carefully down on the nearest desk where it would be out of the way.  Then he took a position just beside the shuddering door and waited.

When the door gave way, the first man to come in got a face-full of fire.  The resulting scream of pain was horrendous, and the room was immediately lightened even more by the gleeful yellow flames catching on clothing and hair.  The stench of burning hair and flesh was stomach-churning and almost instantaneous, but Q found himself equal parts sickened and viciously triumphant as the burning man fell writhing through the door.  

It was then that Q realized that there was one thing his opponents had that _he_ did not: guns.

Up until now, no one had shot at him, perhaps because Q’s previous flight had included a lot of short hallways and tight corners - or perhaps because the primal thrill of the hunt had precluded thoughts of modern-day weaponry, everyone absorbed in the simple, bodily thrill of the chase.  Now, though, as Q’s attention was still transfixed by the flailing, flaming figure, an earsplitting _bang_ filled the air.  Pain creased across his left trapezius, the agony spreading up his neck and down his left shoulder, and he involuntarily dropped the blowtorch in his right hand.  Crying out, the blowtorch clanging on the ground and spinning in lazy circles like a badly shaped rocket, Q fell back to avoid getting burned, too.  

A woman darted through the broken doorway, and for a panicked moment Q thought it was Root, only seeing the dissimilarities a moment later in the dim and flickering light.  Her companion was still on the floor, shrieking in the most ungodly way - “Put it out!  Put it out!” - and rolling to try and douse the flames, although Q had a sickening feeling that the man’s eyes would be a permanent casualty.  

Realizing that he was running out of options - for defense or for escape - Q lunged as another shot went off, thankfully far above his head this time, and grabbed for the blowtorch.  Just as he’d instinctively feared, rushing when handling fire was unwise, and Q cried out as heat scorched across his wrist.  It was worth it, though, as his hands closed around the cool cylinder of metal, and with a desperate heave, he threw it right at the female shooter.  

Clearly, she was shocked and unprepared for the desperate move.  Her eyes widened, and Q’s luck held out as his throw actually sent the blowtorch careening into her gun.  Perhaps the fear of fire or perhaps the simple impact of the torch had her jumping like a spooked horse, and the gun dropped from her hand.  Running on pure adrenalin, but knowing that he wouldn’t last long if he was the least armed person in the room, Q dove for the gun. This time, his luck failed him.  A badly timed sweep of his arm ended up knocking it further across the floor, and the weapon disappeared into the shadows beneath chairs and desks.  Q’s heart fell as he lost sight of it.

He only had a second to accept his loss before a solid kick from a booted foot impacted his side, and the woman bore down on him.  

“You little shit!” she hissed, as Q yelped and curled around the new hurt in surprise.  His household had always been a very cerebral one, and he only vaguely remembered physical fights with his brothers before they’d learned to use their words as weapons.  Pain was simply not something that he’d dealt with very often.  Now, with white-hot pain still radiating between shoulder and neck, and this new ache against his left ribs, Q felt his thoughts scattering into panic.  The woman kicked him again, and he curled tighter, into a ball, his hindbrain at least recalling the basic urge to protect his vital organs.  

“Fuck, you really messed Davidson up,” the woman commented without any indication that she was distraught by this.  Her voice grew nastier as she turned her attention back from her still-moaning companion and snarled, “Now I’m going to mess _you_ up.”  Her next kick still managed to get past his defenses, connecting with his stomach with enough force that Q had to fight the urge to vomit.  The Quartermaster scooted weakly backwards, but the woman followed, chuckling when she saw his back bump up against the piled desks and chairs.  “Now, where’d that blowtorch of yours go?” she mused, deciding that her prey was trapped and weakened enough for her to toy with it, glancing around behind her and spotting the blue and yellow tongue of flame a few metres back.  She heard the rustle of Q moving, but didn’t think much of it as she lazily turned back to him to comment, “Ah, there it is.  What do you say, kid?  You know what they say about people who play with fire-”  She cut off, her eyes widening in surprise.  

While her back had been turned, Q had twisted around, reaching blindly into the shadows - because he’d purposefully scooted over to where the gun had disappeared.  Stretching to hunt around for it had made his entire body hurt, and he was certain that he was bleeding all across his left shoulder, but now he was sitting with his back to an old desk-chair with a loaded weapon in his hands.  He shook and gasped under the onslaught of panic and pain, but kept the gun trained on her.  

But… he couldn’t bring himself to squeeze down on the trigger.  The muzzle wavered, and he gave a little gasp, pained and frustrated.  

Slowly, the woman’s expression shifted from horror to smug realization.  “You’ve never killed anyone before, have you?”

No, Q most certainly hadn’t.  He glanced around desperately for inspiration before turning his focus back to the woman, not wanting her to get the drop on him as he had on her, but his heart plummeted when another broad-shouldered silhouette came through the doorway.  If Q couldn’t shoot one person then he seriously doubted that he could shoot two.

“It’s not easy, shooting a person,” the woman went on, the shifting of her weight the only indication that she was still edgy.  Her attempt at a cajoling tone failing miserably thanks to the chill in her voice overshadowing all else, she continued, “It’s not something you ever recover from.  Especially when you’re looking them in the eyes when you do it.  You remember the eyes.”

The new arrival was right behind the woman now, but still in shadow, as the burned man finally managed to put himself out and the blowtorch had stopped spinning and  was pointing away.  The woman hadn’t noticed, not even when the man came right up behind her - because his footsteps, Q realized with detached bewilderment, were so silent that he may as well have been a ghost.  

Then he proved that he was very real indeed when  he caught the woman’s head and chin in his large hands and snapped her neck almost before she could even look surprised.  She dropped to the floor like a discarded doll.  

Q gasped and very nearly did pull the trigger, belatedly recognizing none other than 007 in the dimness.  Bond didn’t look the least bit bothered by what he’d just done, which chilled Q’s heart like a touch of frostbite.  

“Put the gun down, Q-” James started to say then jerked sharply to the right just as Q’s nervous fingers spasmed and accidentally pulled the trigger.  Q missed.  James arched an eyebrow just visible in the bad lighting, impressed.  Speaking just loud enough for Q to make out the words over the ringing in his ears, 007 commented, “Not bad - but if you shoot me, you’ll be down one potential ally, and I’m not sure you want to be out on your own tonight.”

So terrified that he could barely breathe, Q whimpered, pain now washing nearly to the fingertips of his left hand.  He could still feel where he’d been kicked, as if there were permanent bootprints stamped right into his muscles, and as much as Bond’s words were calm and soothing, there was no forgetting that this man was _a killer_.  Evidence of his skill was even now lying at the man's feet.  

Even as Q found himself staring fixedly at the corpse, James stepped over it, slow and steady like a tide.  

“How do I know you’re not going to just kill me, too?” Q rasped.  He didn’t realize that he was hyperventilating until he began gulping air in earnest, at once getting too much and not enough in a way that usually only happened to him on particularly bad plane trips.  The sudden feeling of suffocation only tripled his panic, and he was barely holding the gun on James at all by the time the man dropped down onto his haunches just a couple of paces away.  

“Easy, easy,” the man murmured, almost preternaturally calm.  “Deep breaths.  In… out… in…  Yes, just like that.”  The muzzle of a gun was presently aimed in the vicinity of his head, but the agent watched Q’s face instead, blue eyes unblinking in the dark.  Sometimes James swayed slightly on his feet, possibly testing whether or not the gun would follow, judging how much control Q still had of the weapon.  “Listen to your heartbeat.  I know it’s racing, but can you feel it slow just a little bit when you breathe out?  Yes… see, breathe out slower,” James kept up the steady, unflappable murmur, his words becoming like the rhythmic susurrus of waves.  “That’s it.  You can sense that momentary slowing, can’t you?”  

In fact, Q was focusing on that heartbeat now like a life-raft, trying not to get frustrated when every inhale sped his heart up again.  He felt like a ship, rising leisurely to the crest of a wave and then plummeting wildly down the other side, and he still wasn’t sure how to escape the endless cycle of it.  He closed his eyes, trying to focus, and quickly realized how tempting the safe darkness behind his eyelids could be.  It was safe here; he could lie to himself and believe that what he couldn’t see couldn’t hurt him.  He was desperate for even a temporary, make-believe refuge right now.  

“Good, Q,” James crooned.  Q cringed away at the reminder that the man was still there, but it wasn't enough to get him to leave the false sense of security he’d found behind his eyelids.  He heard clothing rustling, which meant that 007 was probably moving, but instead of snapping his eyes open to watch, Q squeezed them shut tighter and curled in on himself.  That movement proved a bad idea, because hunching his shoulders reminded him viscerally of where the bullet had grazed him.  When Q cried out, hand spasming, he was aware of two things: firstly, that he had pulled the trigger again - secondly, that James’s hand had pushed Q’s arms sharply to the left at that exact moment, sending the bullet wide.  

This time Q’s eyes reluctantly opened, his chest still heaving and his lashes damp with unshed, panicked tears.  James was crouched right in front of him, his eyes pale and almost colorless in the poor lighting, and momentarily as emotionless as a snake’s.  Feeling totally lost, Q released the gun with a jerk and a gasp, staring up at those eyes and wondering if that snake was going to swallow him alive now.  He didn’t think that he could even begin to fight back.  He’d barely even made it this far, and was devastatingly aware of his own vulnerability, which made the tears build up again upon his lower lashes.  

James’s eyes didn’t exactly warm up, but they didn’t get scarier either, flickering about Q’s person with a relaxed efficiency.  “You’re going into shock,” he said, just stating a fact.  

Even if 007 was a serial killer, his calmness was appreciated.  Voice thin and reedy, Q actually managed to respond, “I-I-I know.”

“Come with me, and I’ll get you somewhere warm.”  James’s eyes were on his, his face still inexpressive but eyes seeming to try and draw Q’s in - the lure of a wolf, standing outside the porch-lights, trying to coax the household dog to run and play and be wild again.

It was so tempting to give in.  Q reached a hand gingerly up to his left shoulder, then cringed and drew back, the pain making it too much to touch.  “And you won’t kill me?”

“I haven’t yet.”

“That’s not reassuring.”  

James shifted his weight again, and once more the serpentine metaphor was back in Q’s dazed mind: a hooded cobra, swaying minutely back and forth.  But he seemed to be considering Q’s words, and after a moment spoke, low and surprisingly reasonable, “Do you want my word?  Would you believe it?”

“I-” Q started, unsure, but desperately aware that he didn’t have a lot of other options available to him besides 007.  “Yes,” he rasped thinly.  

“Good.”  A small smile played at the corner of Bond’s mouth, and it was clear that he was pleased.  “Then you have my word that I won’t murder you.”

“For how long?” Q pressed, feeling a lot like he was making a deal with the devil - so he’d be wise to dot his i’s and cross his t’s.  

“How about…”  007 cocked his head, thinking, then offered in a conspicuously careless tone, “...Three days?”

That surprised Q, and he just sat and blinked for a moment, aware that more blood was starting to trickle down his chest.  “That’s how long C’s offer lasts,” was all he could think to say for a moment.  He startled and then hissed out a pained breath as 007 reached forward unexpectedly - his hand falling on the juncture of Q’s neck and shoulder to put pressure on his wound, he realized through the throbbing.  

“What a coincidence - so it is,” James teased, then swiftly changed the subject, growing brisk all of a sudden, “Now, come on.  Can you stand?  If you can stay functional a little longer, I think I can get you someplace safe.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Does it matter?  Get _up_ , Quartermaster.”

Whether it was the sudden air of command in the voice, or fear of what would happen if he didn’t, the boffin somehow managed to get his feet under him.  Wincing, he bunched together the material of his jumper under his right hand, providing a fistful of cloth to press down against the wound - even though it hurt like hell.  007 was standing now, too, though, and watching with a glint of something that might have been cautious respect in his glacial eyes.  

When James turned without a word while shoving the gun into the waistband of his trousers, Q snatched up his satchel and stumbled after him, keeping his eyes glued to that gun so that he wouldn’t be tempted to look at either the woman’s corpse or the still-moaning burned and blind man, whose bodies littered the floor like trash.

~^~

C’s offer was like a gift from on high for most high-Pass agents - they were already flocking towards the meeting place, albeit via roundabout paths that allowed them to lay old grudges to rest and repay those who had controlled them for so long.  Still, they were rabid for the promise of escape that C was offering them.  

It was the low-numbered agents, though, who were actually thinking the offer over.  They’d lived long enough to know that servitude wasn’t simple, and it wasn’t always easy to see - and they themselves had become masters of traps and manipulation in a way that the younger agents had yet to learn.  Harry Hart, 005, wasn’t the only one who wasn't seeing low-hanging fruit but rather rotten fruit.  007 wasn’t the only one who had decided he had better things to do with his time than rush off to meet a self-declared savior, because he didn’t believe in saviors anymore.  While the agents with numbers above 010 basically rioted with ecstasy, those agents with numbers from 001 to 009 - the true powerhouses, the true forces of nature within Eigengrau - hedged their bets, with the notable exception of Root, who’d sided with C since the beginning.  

Hannibal, for one, saw no reason to rush to join the mad salmon-swim of freed agents.  He’d sat up from his makeshift cot in curiosity when the power had gone out, instantly alert as he heard the little click of the lock deactivating.  He’d listened to everyone's panic, letting it wash over him as he assessed the situation, ultimately listening in the dark as the situation was more or less explained over the intercom.  Hannibal still had some questions on the matter, but all he really needed to know was that the damnable collar around his neck was now no more than a lamentable fashion accessory, and he was free to do what he wanted for at least three days - perhaps indefinitely.  

Aware that he and Agent 004 were the only agents presently locked up in this part of the facility, Hannibal moved quickly after that, expecting an uphill battle to freedom.  After all, the guards in this area had to realize the responsibility they had now: kill the two agents while the odds were still in their favor.  

Except that wasn’t how it worked out.  

Hannibal literally strolled out of his cell, eyes adjusting to the dimness and his other senses drinking in everything: the corrosive smell of spent bullets, the tang of blood, the sounds of fighting quieting down.  He couldn't recall where 004 was held, but it was a slight surprise to find that the copious bloodshed before him was not that agent’s work.  Men dressed like guards stood panting over the bodies of those who should have been their compatriots.  The nearest one straightened, wiping a combat knife clean on his trouser leg, while the two men with him gathered near with proud grins.  They turned to Hannibal like young whelps before an old wolf, waiting for the blood to be licked ceremoniously off their jaws.  

“Figured you could use some help,” the lead fellow said, gesturing to himself and his comrades, “C sent us. We heard that you and Agent Silva were stuck down here.  Couldn’t have that.”

“And here I almost mistook you for guards,” Hannibal said congenially.

The other fellow laughed.  “Nope.  Just dressing the part - C’s been putting his own people into Eigengrau for almost a year, but it’s nice to finally stop being the wolves in sheeps’ clothing and just finally be the wolves, you know?”  

Hannibal chuckled, and the men thought he was laughing with them.  He wasn’t.  He was laughing because these men thought they were wolves.  

Hannibal left their bodies alongside the actual guards, ensuring that no one in Eigengrau could spread word of his being at liberty.  Hannibal was a predator, but he was a big cat, a jaguar, and jaguars knew better than to howl their presence.  

~^~

Eggsy let himself be pushed into a sitting position on the floor, sliding down the wall a bit and feeling the friction against his arms which were still bound in that damned tie.  At least the silk didn’t bite into his skin, although it was tied too tightly for him to slip out of.  Still, Eggsy tried, twisting his wrists while keeping his eyes on the bespectacled man who’d put him in this situation in the first place.  Dressed like a frickin tailor, Agent Harry Hart didn’t _look_ dangerous, being an older gentleman with _glasses_ for chrissakes.  Yet that man had managed to take Eggsy prisoner without so much as losing a lens.  It would have been a lie to say that Eggsy wasn’t afraid of him - the man was a fucking monster in a fight, despite his posh appearance - but at the same time, Eggsy was aware that the man hadn’t just decided to beat the shit out of him.  Growing up with his stepdad had taught Eggsy that people could and did resort to giving a beating when they didn’t get what they wanted, and he found himself instinctively waiting for the same thing from this man, this high-Pass agent.  If anything, Eggsy imagined that it would be a helluva lot worse than any thrashing his stepfather Dean had given him - he was just unsure as to when it would happen.

Hart had marched him down a series of twists and turns he wasn’t familiar with, and they’d ended up in one of the loos, of all places.  Eggsy was sitting against the wall furthest from the door, Harry between him and the exit, the agent presently wetting down a handkerchief in the sink.  The man regarded him for a moment, pausing.  “Are you expecting something, Eggsy?”

Eggsy looked up at him, a bit pugnaciously at first, then grimaced as the upward tilt of his head made more blood run from his nose down the back of his throat.  “I don’ know,” he answered because he figured it could hardly get worse, and he’d be damned if he was going to just be meek and quiet, “It’s just a bit hard to believe that a Hound would be less violent than my stepdad.”

“What do you mean?”  

It was insane how reasonable the man sounded when he wasn’t fighting.  Actually, it was insane how reasonable the man could sound even when he _was_ fighting.  Eggsy didn’t know what to make of that, and it scared him a bit, urging him to blurt out, “When I don’t give you the information you want - ’cause I’m not going to - are you gonna start laying into me with your fists, or just skip right ahead to using me own knife on me?”  

As brave as Eggsy’s words sounded, he still drew his legs up close to his body and leaned back as far as he could when the older man turned his attention to him fully.  Fortunately, Hart didn’t go for the pilfered knife, which Eggsy knew to be in the man’s right trouser-pocket.  Sure, Eggsy was brassed off that the man had taken his knife, but mostly he was aware of how knives were not loyal things - it would cut for Hart as easily as it would cut for Eggsy.  Hart took in Eggsy’s uneasy posture, but only frowned when he asked his own question in return, “Are you saying that’s what your stepfather would do?”

Too late, Eggsy realized he’d opened up a can of worms he hadn’t wanted to dig into.  Uncomfortable, he swallowed, tasting blood again.  He didn’t think his nose was broken, but he’d definitely hit his face on the floor, and the coppery taste was starting to make him nauseous.  “ ’M not saying anything,” he grumbled, looking away.  He immediately jerked his head back again at the first sign of movement, instincts too strong for him to look away from an enemy for more than a few seconds.  But the Hound had just turned back to the sink, taking out the dampened handkerchief.  

When Hart turned with it and approached him, Eggsy growled low in his throat and coiled his legs up even tighter, which was perhaps what urged Hart to give him a jaded look and say primly, “Eggsy, I sincerely don’t want to hurt you, but if you try to kick me, I promise that I can make you supremely uncomfortable.”

“Oh yeah?” Eggsy challenged, because he never could stop running his mouth.  It was usually what led Dean to beating him - although it at least got the bastard’s attention away from Eggsy’s mum and baby sister.  

“Do you _want_ to be hogtied with your own belt?”

Eggsy deflated a little, making a face and then swearing under his breath - because he knew that the man meant it, and could do it.  “Well, when you put it that way…” he muttered with ill-grace, looking away.  He indeed kept his feet and legs to himself as Hart dropped to one knee in front of him and dabbed at his nose with the wet cloth.  It wasn’t bad, really.  The agent was surprisingly gentle, although when Eggsy tossed his head nervously, Hart’s other hand was as fast as a cat’s paw, coming up to catch Eggsy’s jaw.  

“Sit still and let me clean this up,” the man chided. “Even if signs of injury weren’t invitations for Hounds to attack, you look a mess.”

“And whose fault is that?” Eggsy grumbled back defensively.  

Hart, surprisingly, indulged in a small and grudging smile.  “I’d say it’s yours,” he smoothly replied, “for picking a fight with a superior opponent.”  

The cool, wet handkerchief felt rather good, but strange, as it was stroked over Eggsy’s mouth then chin.  Some of the blood had started to get sticky and itchy against his skin, and while Eggsy was honestly rather used to the sensation, that didn’t mean he liked it.  His skin felt cleaner and something in his mind had relaxed, too, by the time Hart tossed the cloth back to the nearest sink.  The grip remained on Eggsy’s chin a moment longer, a hold that he knew instinctively he couldn’t break, although he tried anyway.  “Stop that,” Hart immediately but quietly commanded, tightening his grip and pressing Eggsy’s head back against the wall for better leverage.  All the man seemed intent on doing, however, was checking Eggsy over, gazing right now at his nose, then one eye, then the other.  “I’m ensuring that I didn’t break your nose or give you a concussion.”

“Gotta tell you, bruv, I didn’t take you for the sentimental type.”

That small, wry smile was back again, just flirting with the corner of Hart’s mouth, even if he stayed otherwise focused.  His words were light, almost airy, “Usually I’m not, but like I said, I owe your father.”

Eggsy was aware that if he had been a cat, his ears would have perked up.  This time Harry did let go of his hold on Eggsy’s face as the boy turned to look at him more squarely, eyes giving away their curiosity.  “You knew my da?”

“Yes,” Hart said simply.  He hesitated, and Eggsy saw something troubled flicker across Hart’s  face, making him look suddenly older, his eyes darker like a storm had passed over them.  It was only after pursing his lips for a moment that Hart said, “I was with him when he died.  He saved my life.”

Now how was he supposed to take that?  Blinking in owlish surprise, Eggsy just sat frozen where he was, wondering whether to stridently deny that or demand further stories to sate the old hunger that had woken up inside of him.  “I didn’t…  Even me mum doesn’t know how he died,” he said, managing to infuse a bit of denial into his voice, because the last thing he wanted was a connection to this killer.  “Or what he _did_.”

“Do you want to know?” Hart asked, sensibly.  

Eggsy honestly wasn’t sure.  His life was already a train-wreck, and if he didn’t do something about it, things were only going to get worse.  Still, he couldn’t help but be tempted by the offer, because he’d grown up on little more than his mother’s silence - unless she was drunk enough to babble, in which case she told melancholic, often angry stories about Eggsy’s father always being gone for _work_.  

Eggsy didn’t answer immediately, and the agent must have read something in Eggsy’s eyes, or his lowered eyebrows, or the increasingly defensive set of his shoulders.  Hart smiled sadly with half his mouth.  “Perhaps another time.  Focusing on the present might keep us busy for quite awhile anyway, hm?”  And just like that, Agent Hart went back to being aloof and efficient, standing up much more smoothly than a man his age had any right to, in Eggsy’s books.  Hart returned to the sink to rinse out his handkerchief.  “This all started because you have information that I want.”

“Yes,” Eggsy grumbled, back to being wary.  He was surprised by how much he already missed the feeling of a truce - the wry half-smiles of understanding, the handkerchief cleaning blood off his face.  There had been some modicum of safety there.  

“And you maintain that you have no interest in giving it,” Hart summed up further, then turned to Eggsy, eyebrows raised and the sides of his mouth tipped downwards as he added, “You do realize what I am, don’t you?  Agents like myself with a dangerously high Psychopass are utilized for spywork all across the world - which includes information gathering.”  

“I.  Can’t.  Tell you.  Nothing,” Eggsy bit out as mulishly as possible.  Most of his moxie was a bluff, but he’d found that the more he puffed up and made a show of it, the less people called him out on his bluffs.  

“Ah.”  Hart’s eyes sharpened, and his faint frown became a smile, letting Eggsy know immediately that he’d screwed up.  “Before you were saying ‘won’t,’ now you’re saying ‘can’t.’  I’m going to call that progress, because that’s another thing entirely.”

When Hart didn’t say anything more, simply turned back to his task at the sink, Eggsy couldn’t help himself.  “Why’s that?” he cleared his throat and asked, then tried to look uninterested when the agent glanced at him again.  

“Because when a person _won’t_ tell me something, it’s a simple matter of stubbornness,” Hart fell into a bluff, lecturing tone, wringing out his handkerchief then lifting it and inspecting it, frowning when there was still a pinkish tinge.  He went on, grimacing at the material, “Those cases are the most annoying, because torture takes time and is vastly unreliable.”  Eggsy went very still, shrinking back against the wall despite himself.  Hart gave the handkerchief a shake and put it back under the water, shrugging, “But when they _can't_ tell me something, it means that there’s a point of leverage - a point that either someone else is already using, to keep the person quiet, or one that _I_ can use to make them talk.”  

Hart was hitting uncomfortably close to home, and desperation clawed at the back of Eggsy’s throat.  He tried again to get loose of the tie and this time thought he felt a little give.  Adrenaline making his blood hot, Eggsy snarled back, “Look, I still don’t see why it matters so damned much to you - what else do you need to know besides what C said on the intercom?  You’re free to do what you want-”

“But at what cost?” Hart asked back calmly.

“I don’t know!” Eggsy snapped, exasperated.  The knot loosened further, and he twisted his wrists harder.  

“You still know a lot more about this whole business than you’re telling,” Hart pressed calmly.  

It was then that Eggsy got loose.  Knowing that the element of surprise was the best ally he could get, he didn’t waste a second.  Jerking his hands free, he got his feet under him just enough for a low, tackling lunge, and felt a surge of triumph at the too-late look of surprise on Hart’s face.  They both went down in a tangle on the floor, Eggsy on top this time.  

Even with Eggsy sitting on his stomach, Hart was an elusive target, blocking blows or twisting his torso to make a good punch hard to land with any real power.  Still, it felt good to finally be the one giving instead of receiving punches, and Eggsy had a helluva lot of frustration to work out.  “I don’t _care_ what you want to know!” he shouted, feeling a torrent of helpless anger that had built behind his teeth.  He managed to land a blow on Hart’s shoulder, but at this angle, it held only half the power he wanted it to, which just made more of his frustration leak out.  “I don’t care about this fucking political game, or what C really wants with you and your _friends_!”  Hart shifted to protect his face, and left an opening. Eggsy took it, hammering hard into the agent’s ribcage on the right side, perhaps feeling a tiny bit more in control of the situation, though his blood was roaring in his ears, and he  couldn’t stop yelling, “And I don’t care if you decide to bloody beat it outta me, because believe me, I’ve survived enough of that at home!”

Without warning, and with such skill that Eggsy wondered why Harry hadn’t done this before now, the agent caught both of Eggsy’s forearms and pulled.  Eggsy’s hands slapped against the floor, pinned in place on either side of Hart’s head, dragging the two of them suddenly nose to nose.  Some voice in the back of Eggsy’s mind told him to head-butt the agent, but for some reason he was frozen; the same anger that had roared up and fueled his attack was now burning him instead, and it hurt.  He hadn’t realized how raggedly he was breathing until now.  The eyes looking up at him were so steady yet fierce that Eggsy wanted to fall into them, or drag some of that ferocity back into himself.  

“Then what _do_ you want, Eggsy?” Harry demanded sharply past clenched teeth, meeting Eggsy’s wild eyes without blinking or turning away.

Those words stabbed neatly through Eggsy’s armor like a stiletto, and something in him gave way.  He’d been living under stress for what felt like forever, ever since a man named Max Denbigh called him up, saying that he’d heard about Eggsy’s brief military stint and how he’d gotten quite a name for himself flying helicopters. Thinking that he’d get out from under his stepfather's thumb, Eggsy had met the man and agreed to work for him, but found out too late that Denbigh, now called C, had other plans; plans that Eggsy didn’t like but couldn’t say no to.  

“I want them to let my baby sis go,” Eggsy found the words slipping like shards of glass from his mouth, cutting as they went and bleeding all of the fight out of him.

~^~  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly, everyone is having bad days ;) But hey - Q and Bond have met up! Now Q just has to... well... survive Bond...


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q gets some much needed medical care, and Sherlock gets to show off his smarts...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School is definitely slowing down my typing, but thankfully, I still have plenty of chapters to post ;) Enjoy!

Q had picked up his satchel on the way out of the storage room, it felt awkward slung over his right because he usually had the strap over his left shoulder, a thought that made him physically cringe now.  His entire left side felt like it was throbbing, from the bruises and burns and grazes, and it felt like an eternity as he stumbled after Bond down the halls.  

At one point he squeaked as James turned around and suddenly crowded him into a closet, body pressing against him.  “Shhh,” the agent hushed, “I’m just hiding you here until one of your new friends passes.”

Never before had the building felt so damnably cold, and now Q felt like he was freezing, and suddenly 007 was a lot more inviting simply because he was very warm.  At this proximity, Q’s entire front was getting cozy, and when he closed his eyes, it wasn’t a fearful reaction but the actions of a cat huddled up against a space-heater.  “Not my friend,” he mumbled thickly but stubbornly in response to Bond’s suggestion.

James’s responding chuckle was more felt through Q’s chest than heard through his ears, as James stayed pressed close.  He was a veritable wall of muscle at Q’s front.  The agent kept an eye on the crack in the door, as watchful as a hawk.  “My apologies.  I forgot that not everyone makes friends with people who try to kill them,” he joked in a whisper.  Q didn’t respond besides a put-upon huff - more of a sigh - and he only twitched a little as one of Bond’s hands moved to cup his right shoulder, then slide over towards his neck. Q realized that the man was tracking his pulse.  Neither of them commented on the gesture, and soon the danger in the corridor had passed them, unaware of the hidden men.  For a time after that, neither of them moved. Q just stood with his eyes closed, wondering what 007 was learning from the rapid flutter of his heart-beat.  When the agent’s hand retreated from his throat without a comment being made, however, Q returned to shuffling along in the wake of Bond’s confident footsteps.  

“No one’s here,” Bond noted, as he lead the way into just another darkened room, so far as Q could tell.  It took a few weary, pained blinks for Q to look around and realize that he was looking at the smaller of Eigengrau’s two medical facilities.  It appeared to have been abandoned in a rush -- papers scattered across the surfaces along with assorted medical implements, forceps, syringes, bandages, and the like, while cupboard doors hung wide like gaping maws -- and Q shivered as he tried to imagine the fear that must be felt by people all over Eigengrau.  

After all, not everyone had their own personal Hound taking an active interest in their well-being.  

As if reading his thoughts, James commented as he began looking through the general mess of open cupboards and overturned tray-tables, “Anyone with a lick of sense will be heading right now for the guards’ quarters - the survival odds will be best there.  Some idiots will try to return to their own quarters, though, which is just as likely to be a bloodbath.”  007 spoke dispassionately, but when his face was in profile, Q could see the  slight frown there. .  “Hopefully their doors will be made of tougher stuff than yours was back there, Quartermaster.”

Unable to even think about standing anymore, Q sank into a nearby chair, only to be chivvied up by James and pushed into a side-room.  Q was vaguely aware of complaining about this, but his arguments stopped when he was nudged into an actual sofa.  “Medical treats employees in this clinic more than they do the agents - so the amenities are nicer,” James explained with a wry smile, then disappeared again.  He returned a moment later with an armload of supplies, some of which he deposited in an unceremonious pile on Q’s lap.  The boffin was momentarily confused, stupidly staring down at heavy, squarish packages for a moment and barely noticing as James gently relieved Q of his satchel.  At least the agent put it down gently, against the nearest leg of the sofa.  “Heat-packs, Q,” Bond said when it was clear Q’s brain was too befuddled to catch on without assistance.  “I’ve already activated them, so you might spread them around a little instead of just burning a hole in your crotch with all five.”

Q managed to work up enough effort to glare, but then shakily got his right arm working, taking the hand-sized packs - which were indeed beginning to warm - and tucking them around himself.  They were in what was clearly meant to be a private room, so James dragged a blanket off the bed, tossing it over Q’s lap to seal in the growing heat.  

A container of pills came next, though the label was impossible to read until suddenly the emergency back-up lights came on.  007 immediately tensed, becoming so alert that the air around him seemed to vibrate, and he pressed a hand down on Q’s good shoulder.  “Stay,” he said, so serious that Q wasn’t even going to attempt to argue.  The agent disappeared for only a few moments, and was significantly calmer when he returned.  “Looks like our dubiously benevolent benefactor has decided that utter chaos is best with a little mood-lighting - it appears that the emergency lights are on everywhere.  Fat lot of good it’ll do.”

The lights were indeed very dim - though less dim than the light that filtered through the windows - and Q still had to squint at the bottle before realizing that he was looking at strong painkillers.  He dry-swallowed one before James came back with a flimsy plastic cup filled to the brim with water.  “You might want to take two,” he suggested, nodding to the pills as if commenting on the weather, continuing in the same absolutely bland tone, “because I’m going to be sewing your shoulder up, and even with a local, it’s going to hurt like a bitch later.”

Q made a little choking noise, starting to scoff at 007 before he realized that the man wasn’t just messing with him.  “You’re serious?” he said, voice small, wrapping shaking fingers around the cup.  

“You got shot, right?” James guessed.  When Q closed his eyes against the memory but nonetheless nodded, James confirmed, “Then you’re going to need stitches.  So take your shirt off, and be thankful that I was able to find you before you got more bullet holes put in you.”

“How did you find me?” Q had to ask.  His brain felt fuzzy, the pain and the shock making it feel like someone had infused him with molasses, and the only perk to the sensation was that he no longer had the energy or the focus to get particularly panicked about anything.  Anxiety didn’t even register as 007 gripped the hem of his jumper and began drawing it upwards, when Q apparently didn’t move fast enough.  Q winced and let out a thin keen of pain as he was forced to move all manner of body parts that were in pain.  

“Sorry, Q, just take it easy,” James hushed him, somewhat more patiently than before as he managed to strip Q from the waist up.  It made Q think briefly, fuzzily, that this was probably a skill that helped with Bond’s reputation as a womanizer: he was clearly quite adept at removing other people’s clothing.  “I might have been in the area.  I don’t trust C as far as I can throw him.”

“So you already know that C is behind this?  Wait - what?”  None of this was making particular sense to the muzzy-headed Quartermaster, and to make matters worse, now that Q was barechested, he could see quite clearly - even in the dim lighting - how beaten up he was.  “ _Shit_.”  

“Even if I didn’t recognize his voice from seeing him around Eigengrau for the past two days, I’d have known,” James admitted, studiously opening up a package that revealed a sterilized syringe, “because I followed one of his men, a lanky bastard who came in with the last batch of guards.  He just…”  007 wrinkled his nose, clearly a bit frustrated, “There was something about him that didn’t smell right.  Like blood in the air.”

“So you…?”  Q was trying to follow along, if only to distract himself as James drew up a shot of what was presumably - hopefully - a local anesthetic.  “So you were suspicious of this character, and connected him to C…?”

“They met up not far from Q-branch,” James shrugged and nodded.  Most of his attention was on his work, rather than his narrative, which was probably for the best.  “I didn’t realize that you were still in Q-branch until I heard that last bit on the intercom, though.”

As James turned now to Q’s shoulder, setting the syringe carefully aside and instead finding an antiseptic wipe to clean the wound up a little - fresh blood having joined the crusted redness after all the moving around they’d done - Q beetled his brows at James’s relaxed countenance.  “They never actually said my name.”

Blue eyes briefly flicked up from Q’s wound, meeting Q’s gaze for just a millisecond before looking down again.  Q was beginning to accept that 007’s motives were too convoluted for him to follow, especially when the man insisted on being so unreadable.  “I made an educated guess,” Bond brushed it off with a small smile, “Who else would be in an otherwise empty Q-branch at that hour?  What were you doing?”

Q fidgeted at the sting of the antiseptic because the pain medication had still in no way kicked in, and he just wanted to escape the discomfort.  He stopped, however, with a little catch of breath as James’s free hand came up and settled around the base of his throat.  It didn’t squeeze, or otherwise threaten Q in any way, but it firmly held Q in place with warm fingers and thumb spread across his throat and collarbones.  Officially distracted from the pain of the wipe Bond continued to apply with his other hand, Q answered in a thin voice, “I was trying to set a plan in motion to get Sherlock out.”

“Well, it looks like someone beat you to it, and did one better,” James grunted, smile getting more wry, “Now _everyone_ is out, your brother included, probably.”

“The irony does not escape me.”

Bond seemed satisfied with his cleaning job, retreating and also removing his belaying hand from Q’s throat; Q dared to look over, and by craning his neck could just see the ugly looking gash where the bullet had scored him.  When James picked up the syringe, Q became handshy again, and it became necessary to replace the hand across the hollow of his throat, a gesture that already felt strangely intimate and familiar.  Q squeezed his eyes shut and whined as the needle pumped cold fluid into his torn skin, making the pain temporarily increase before slowly but blessedly taking it all away.  It felt so nice that Q started shaking in earnest, eyes tearing up, but thankfully James gave him a moment or two, setting up what he needed.  The eventual sewing process passed by in a bit of a stress-induced blur.  Q came back to himself with James snipping off the last line of thread, the blanket now hooked up over Q’s right shoulder so that as much of him was covered as possible while still giving James space to work.

“The irony of this doesn’t escape me, either,” Q said carefully, gesturing between the two of them.  

“Hmm?” James looked up, then caught on, mouth twitching.  “I bet you’ve never been so happy to be in the good graces of a certified assassin-spy,” he teased.

“I’m still not sure how that happened.”

“It was easy,” James volleyed back drolly, turning his attention to Q’s left wrist, where the skin on the back of it was angry and red - burnt, and already blistering in places - from grabbing at the blowtorch.  “You lured me in with secrets I couldn’t resist and kept my attention by treating me like a human being.”

The way Bond said it, he seemed to be joking around, but hearing those words…  Q couldn’t take them lightly.  James made it sound like Q treating him like a person was sort of a joke, but it wasn’t, and it was painful to see a man so easily dismiss himself as being _worthy_ of fair treatment.  And if Q weren’t so swamped by his own problems, he’d have demanded they have a conversation about that.  As it was, he hissed and bit back little protests as James none-too-gently slathered Q’s burn with cream and then wrapped it in medical gauze.  “There.  You’re as patched up as I can make you,” James declared, although Q jumped as Bond’s fingers intruded on his personal space again to prod his aching ribs, “Although there’s not much I can do for that.  I hope all this was worth it to hang around Q-branch after hours.”

“It was,” Q huffed moodily, dragging the blanket the rest of the way over himself until he was covered modestly to the neck - and almost instantly much warmer.  

“Really?”  James arched a disbelieving eyebrow and sat down across from Q, on the bed.  “Your rescue of your brother became a moot point when C declared independence for every high-Pass person here, and you got beat to hell and nearly killed.  Forgive me if that doesn’t sound worth anything.”

“For your information-” Q started to sass back, then cut himself off so sharply that he almost bit his tongue.  He realized quite suddenly that his major accomplishment directly affected 007, and in a way that might tip the power imbalance even further.  

Unfortunately, James had already proven to be pretty keen when it came to Q hiding things, even if the suddenly abrogated sentence wasn’t a dead giveaway.  His gaze darkened instantly with suspicion, eyes seeming to go a sudden cobalt color.  “What were you about to say, Q?” he demanded with quiet severity.  This was a man who’d had to look out for his own self-interest for years now, if not his whole life, with much of the world working against him - so he was conditioned to go on the defensive dangerously quickly.  

Realizing just how much his continued survival depended upon James Bond right now was a sobering concept, and it was what got Q’s tongue to reluctantly loosen.  “Before escaping Q-branch and C’s mob, I was able to gain possession of the key used to remove agents’ collars,” Q admitted bluntly, watching as 007’s blue eyes widened.  Clutching the blanket closer and wishing for more heat-packs even though he already had a whole nest of them, Q was quick to add, “That doesn’t mean I can just let you free right this instant!  C infected all the hardware with malware, so I don’t have the computer access I need, and even if I did, it takes M’s passcodes to activate.”

“Then why did you risk your life to take it?” Bond demanded.

“Because,” Q said, wetting his lips, beginning to talk of things that he’d only mentally speculated so far, “if C gets ahold of them, he’ll do one of two things - either he’ll remove the collar of every high-Pass agent who joins him-”

“Pretty good incentive,” James grunted, but folded his arms obstinately nonetheless.  

“Yes, especially since they’re using a signal jammer of sorts to make sure the collars are useless, but the second they turn that machine off, you’re once again wearing a death-sentence,” Q concurred, then deflated a little.  When he spoke again it was contritely.  “Sorry, that was tactless.”

Bond shrugged dismissively.  “But also true.  Keep going.  What else might C do, besides freeing his favorites and summarily killing everyone else?”

“He could also free _no one_ ,” Q emphasized pointedly.  When James’s eyes narrowed, wary but keen as razors, Q began to elaborate on pure supposition that was beginning to make entirely too much sense, “Removing those collars is tedious.  The key must be plugged into a computer, a program opened, and the specific agent keyed in with a code - and while I’m not sure how many people know the agents' codes, I imagine it’s not everyone.  Then, to make it even more complicated, you also need M’s code, which I guarantee no one else knows.  When both codes have been entered, that only opens _that_ particular agent’s collar.  Then you have to start the process all over again for each agent.”

007’s eyes had grown unfocused, and it was clear that he was thinking rapidly.  Still, it was surprising when he took up the narrative so quickly and intuitively, “And if C feels confident enough to give all of us agents three days to run around murdering people, then he’s clearly not worried about a time-crunch at the end.” Bond’s eyes focused back on Q, guessing, “You think that he’s not planning on wasting all that time with the collars.”

“I think that his promise of freedom is a lie, and to ensure his control, he’s going to destroy all of the keys - and probably kill M, too, for good measure,” Q stated grimly, then shivered and burrowed deeper into the blanket, starting to feel numb and sleepy in a drugged sort of way - no doubt the painkillers finally at work.  “Either way,” Q grumbled against the edge of the blanket, “it serves my purposes to keep at least one key out of C’s hands.”

“Because you don’t want to see him freeing psychopaths willy-nilly?” James suggested wryly.

Q stubbornly added, eyes closing, “And because I don’t want him destroying that chance of freedom altogether.  Both extremes are distasteful to me.”

For a moment there was silence, and Q was too tired and stressed to open his eyes.  After a stretch, however, James said softly and only a little bit teasingly, “You’re a marvel, Q.”

“I don’t feel like a marvel.”  Q managed to prise his eyes open, although they were beginning to feel grimy and gritty, not to mention leaden.  “A marvel would be able to figure a way out of this.”

“You’re setting the bar a little high, Q.  For now, just be glad that you’re in one piece, more or less.”

Q ignored him.  He refused to fall asleep until he’d at least done _something_ useful.  “M’s the lynchpin.  If C wants to use the key to unlock those collars you Hounds wear, then he’ll need to capture M.  If not, he’ll need to kill him as quickly as possible.”

Bond sighed, clearly resigning himself to the fact that Q wasn’t going to let this go - which was smart of him, because even though Q was on his last legs of strength and sanity, he was clearly stubborn as hell.  He’d never let a problem go, not until it was conquered, like a bone gnawed through by a terrier’s teeth.  Still sitting slouched on the edge of the hospital bed, James replied resignedly, “I know the way to M’s quarters and to his office, but unless he’s bloody stupid he won’t be either of those places anymore - and that means he’ll be nearly impossible to find.  C made a good move when he destroyed our communications options.  In a facility this big, we may as well all be on a hundred different little islands, all alone, without them.”

“Not entirely,” Q suddenly mused, bringing one hand free of the blanket to rub thoughtfully at his chin, ending up chewing lightly on a fingernail as he pondered.  “Not all forms of communication are cut off,” he elaborated belatedly, warming to his topic, “The intercom is still active, to my knowledge - C used it, after all, even when everything else was shut down.  I might have to manually hack into it, but I know I can do that...”  Q trailed off with a wracking shiver and a jaw-popping yawn.  

James, who couldn’t have missed either action, stated firmly, “Tomorrow.  You’re done for tonight.”

“But-”

“You’re a genius, Q,” Bond cut him off, tone blunt and eyes fixed on Q with almost unsettling frankness, “but you’re not indestructible.  Take it from someone trained to look for human weakness - you look like something the cat dragged in, and even if I weren't afraid you’d collapse the second you stood up, I’d be worried that your weakness would draw all the wrong kinds of attention.”  When Q opened his mouth to protest again, James lifted a hand, stating more sharply, “I won’t question your knowledge if you don't question mine.  Out there-”  James pointed at the doorway, and presumably the entirety of Eigengrau beyond, presently kept out because James had jammed shut the doors to the small clinic.  “-It’s open-season on people like you.  You’re not at the top of the food-chain anymore, I am.”  Q drew back, afraid for a moment, looking in James’s eyes and seeing the emotionless blue of a feral cat’s eyes: calm, capable, merciless.  But James soon went on, “I’ll trust you to be the brains if you’ll let me be the brawn.”

“You…  You really want to ally with me?” Q asked in disbelief.  For the first time he began to consider if he really was in shock, and if symptoms of shock included temporary insanity, or at least auditory hallucinations.  One way or another, the situation didn’t change as James kept talking.  

“I believe you when you say C is up to something.  Call me paranoid, but I think he seems more the type to screw us over and keep the upper hand rather than to just let a bunch of Hounds go free out of the goodness of his heart.”  

“But still…  Just… _Why_?”

“Well, for starters…”  James reached up and hooked a finger through the loop of his collar - presently harmless but still very present.  “...I don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting this off on my own, but with you, I’ve got much better chances.  Besides that…”  Now 007 grinned, and Q found himself immediately uneasy at the roguish expression.  James continued in an entirely too careless tone, “...It’s going to get bloody cold pretty soon in this part of the building, and if I leave you now, you might very well freeze.  Having another body nearby will keep us both warmer.”

~^~

The pieces had all started to fall into place as Sherlock listened to the ranting voice over the intercom system.  John had already left for his own quarters for the evening, but the regular guards had been there to hear Sherlock cry out triumphantly as his deductions were proven correct - there was a traitor within Eigengrau’s walls, quite a few traitors, in fact.  The guards misinterpreted Sherlock’s excitement, thinking that he was crowing because his jailers had been overthrown, and came to his cell to yell at him and bang threateningly at the bars.  Still unused to people threatening this sort of violence against his person, even after two months, Sherlock had snapped his mouth shut and drawn back to the rear of his cell.  

That didn’t mean he was wrong, however.  Sherlock had been a hound on a scent, and when everyone had dragged him away from his tracking, his quarry had come bursting out of the shadows of its own accord.

The locks in Holding were manual, mechanical ones, so while the guards were clearly disturbed by the situation and bothered by their sudden inability to communicate with their fellows, they didn’t reach the point of full-on panic. Sherlock’s cell was only a little way down the corridor from where most of the area's guards were gathered, muttering and speculating anxiously, so he also heard when one of the doors to Holding opened with a whine of old hinges – at which point the guards set up a tremendous racket.  For a moment, Sherlock felt a fist of fear close around his heart, imagining a million kinds of danger that could have somehow gained access to his little pocket of Eigengrau.

All those fears were swept away, however, when John Watson’s roar cut through the chaos, commanding and furious, “ _Stand down_!  Put your fucking guns away before I holster them all up your arses – and someone give me a hand here!”

Sherlock immediately crowded up to the bars again, trying to see as much as he could.  It wasn’t much, but if he pressed his face right up against the chilled metal and strained his eyes to look slantwise down the hallway, he could just see the entranceway.  There were people stumbling, tripping, and dragging one another through, many of them stricken with telltale smears of red that spoke of barely survived violence.  Sherlock caught flickers of John amidst it all, and could certainly hear his voice as he took control of the chaotic situation.  “Everything’s gone to hell out there,” John stated almost wrathfully, responding to the guards' demands for answers.  As a Handler, he technically outranked them, even though his position had been no more officially approved than had Sherlock’s position as a Hound  – but even if one disregarded rank, John’s awareness of events outside Holding gave him a position of power that had everyone looking to him, that much was clear even from where Sherlock was.  “Some maniac knocked out all the power, all communications, and even battery-run computers are on the fritz,” John informed them.

“So who are these people?” one of the guards asked of the people John had dragged along with him.

“People caught in the crossfire,” John said succinctly, gravely, “I was heading here when I found them under attack from a high-Pass agent – 017, I think.  They’d managed to barricade a door.”

“But not before she killed five people in the common room,” gasped a woman that Sherlock couldn’t see, undoubtedly one of the victims.  There were little sobs to be heard like echoes of her distraught words.

“I brought them here with me because I figured they’d be safer,” John said.

Sherlock couldn’t keep quiet anymore.  Feeling a little thrill that always came with exercising his skills, he made sure that his voice was calm and would carry, then called out, “John has a point.  In all of Eigengrau, this section of the facility is the least updated.  Everywhere else is electronic, if I recall correctly – and I always do – so I wouldn’t be surprised if nearly ninety-percent of the doors in Eigengrau are incapable of being secured in any way.”

What heads Sherlock could see had all turned toward him, and while some people were still whimpering in pain, Sherlock was able to hear one of the guards eloquently respond after a heavy silence, “ _Fuck_.”

“Here, put pressure on that,” Sherlock heard John, somewhere out of sight, order gently.  Sherlock took in that information and realized with surprised approval that John had not only spirited these people away from danger, but was also seeing to their injuries now.  Soon, however, the sandy-haired man in question was trotting up to Sherlock’s cell with a serious, no-nonsense sort of expression on his face.  “Sherlock, what do you know?” he demanded, “Because I guarantee that you know something – you’ve been going on and on about a traitor since the moment I met you, and now it seems you’ve been proven right.  Happy?”

Ignoring John’s caustic tone because clearly the man was upset, Sherlock replied distractedly, “Ecstatic,” before engaging the gears of his mind and steepling his fingers pensively.  He tapped them rhythmically against his chin as he started to speak, now that he had a decent audience, “It takes someone well-connected to do even a fraction of what this individual has done – and that someone is technologically gifted, unless he had Root do all the work.  She’s skilled with electronics, I presume? And that _was_ Root we heard on the intercom, female Hound with the Handler named Fusco, yes?”

John seemed a bit off-put by Sherlock’s efficient yet fervent tone, and blinked twice, rapidly, before hesitantly answering both questions, “Yes, and yes…”

Sherlock kept right on going, having already known those answers; asking for confirmation had been more of a tool intended to check that his audience was listening, really.  “One way or another, this mastermind has managed to cripple an entire organization in mere minutes – and he clearly has more than one ally.  You heard the offer for the Hounds to meet him at the helicopter pad, no?”  This time not waiting for a response, picking up speed, Sherlock went on, “An offer like that only makes sense if he has a pilot in his back pocket – and considering the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of the pilot Connor White-”

“How does he know about that?” one of the guards further down the hall – clearly eavesdropping even as she tended to wounded – called.

“I told him,” John replied wincingly.  He added in a quieter grumble that was probably not audible beyond himself and Sherlock, full of jaded defeat, “Because he was going out of his mind with boredom.”

“Yes, thank you for that,” Sherlock said, meaning it, before diving back into his mind again and starting to pace energetically, “So – back to White.  Like the deaths I was following before my untimely arrest, White’s death was suspiciously well-planned and well-timed and opened up a critical position on Eigengrau’s staff.  I imagine that there are people to vouch for the long-term pilots, but what about the new one, hmm?”  Sherlock had paced away but now spun around to face John again, whose eyes showed that he was starting to catch on, and didn’t like the picture being painted very much.  “How many murders have been committed, John, that could conceivably make  way for the hiring of more malleable employees?  All of whom would have to have been hired for Eigengrau within the past…”  Sherlock cast back in his head, thinking about the murder scenes he’d investigating, putting together a timeline.  “…Half a year, at least, although one must account for the regular shift-changes.  There would be no point in placing an operative in Eigengrau only to have them be rotated out before the big day.”

“What are you saying, Sherlock?” John pressed, coming closer to the bars.  By this point his expression said that he almost didn’t want to know, but Sherlock respected that the man was asking anyway.

“I’m saying that whomever is in charge of this coup is intimately aware of how Eigengrau operates, but is only tangentially connected to the hiring process,” Sherlock rattled off, “If the man we heard on the intercom was able to hire people directly, he wouldn’t have had to murder anyone.  Nonetheless, he’s managed to amass enough allies to not only have access to a pilot, and to leave Eigengrau with his allies, but to also kill the previous pilot while framing someone else for it.  He clearly had people with him when he was on the intercom, when he ordered that poor sod to be chased down, and he’s already got Agent 009 on his side, to say nothing about the other men and women he’s in the process of amassing.”

“High-pass agents, you mean.”

Sherlock hummed assent without any particular inflection.  It was just a fact.

“Shit,” John breathed, putting one hand on his hip and dragging the other back through his hair, tugging at the short strands.  There was a heavy, grim sort of quiet everywhere, and Sherlock stepped forward to peer down the hall again, realizing belatedly that everyone had been listening – and were cowed by what they’d heard.  Sherlock felt a flicker of unexpected regret, suddenly seeing the power his words could hold.

John was still talking, although he had the sense – and the voice – not to let his words carry as much as Sherlock’s had.  “A lot of innocent people are going to die.”

“A lot of people, _innocent or not_ , are going to die.  From what you’ve told me of the other high-Pass agents, they can be rather indiscriminate in their violence,” Sherlock made an attempt to quiet and gentle his voice, too, following his would-be-Handler’s example.  “Didn’t you tell me that 004 tried to kill 007 just within the past week?”

John made a little noise that might have been a chuckle or a little choke of breath; either way, it wasn’t really all that happy a sound.  He still had one hand buried in his hair, his eyes unfocused and looking up at the ceiling as if it had answers.  “Yeah, that happened,” he agreed, then looked at Sherlock with an unexpected attempt at lightness in his brown eyes, “I suppose it’s too much to hope that they’ll all kill each other off first?”

Sherlock cracked a slantwise smile.  “I won’t tell you the statistical likelihood of that happening,” he replied warmly, because he had to commend the smaller man for finding something light in this dark situation, even if it felt like gallows’ humor, “But technically, it _is_ a possibility.  Anything is.”

“Well, that’s encouraging.”  This time, John definitely chuffed out a breathy little laugh, glancing back down the hall but apparently judging by what he saw that everything was under control.  Then, however, his expression became distant and thoughtful, both hands dropping to his sides slowly and brows drawing together.

Insatiable curiosity had always been Sherlock’s Achilles’ heel, and he found himself gripping the bars, wishing he could walk through them, as if greater proximity could allow him to see the very thoughts in the other man’s head more clearly.  “What is it, John?”

Most people that Sherlock had met at Eigengrau weren’t interested in entertaining his questions, but instead of getting cagey or testy, John began speaking immediately, “The only thing I don't understand is…  Whoever is behind all of this is clearly a psychopath – but if so, why didn’t the Sybil System catch him before all of this happened in the first place?  You’re saying this was organized from the outside, but how could a person like that still _be_ on the outside?”

By the time John finished speaking, he’d turned back to face Sherlock, and the middle Holmes was looking down at his feet.  He didn’t feel… guilty, per se, but there was definitely something about himself that he’d not told John, because it included his brothers, too.  He knew that it wasn’t so impossible at all for someone with a dangerous mind to still be roaming free.  Up until now, though, he’d had the hubris to think that no one besides the Holmes brothers could be so lucky as to stand in Sybil’s blindspot.  “…I might have an answer for that,” he answered grudgingly, the pitch of his voice weighed down by an edge of guilt.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh, these are my favorite cliffhangers :3 Especially the Bond/Q section's cliffhanger - the next chapter is one of my FAVORITES!!! And I'll do my best to post it in a week.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Ianto: you get some history, and some in-depth description of the trouble he's in right-the-fuck-now.  
> On Q: Well, mostly you get an in-depth description of the right-the-fuck-now kind of trouble (if you can call bed-sharing with 007 trouble, which is of course exactly what it is).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite chapters, and not just because I get to write the scary side of Jack Harkness... :3

~^~

Ianto Jones’s life had always been exactly as interesting as he’d wanted it to be.  As a child in Cardiff, he’d been perfectly mediocre, capable of surprising people either with sudden feats of success or failure, all more or less by choice.  He was never the person in the spotlight when he was with friends, but likewise found a certain safety – and power – in being ignored, and found out that he liked working from the shadows of other people.  Those in charge of things were always under scrutiny, but Ianto could _choose_ to either become involved or fade into the background as he wished.  He was told by a teacher once, in his formative years, that he had a quiet demeanor and a face that begged to be forgotten, and instead of being enraged by that, he’d accepted it as his mantle and enjoyed the perks.

With his quietness and forgettability  – but also with a decent amount of genius behind it; Ianto wasn’t stupid – Ianto had graduated into the working world of adults, and had proceeded to climb the corporate ladder in the quietest way possible.  He judged and read people, seeing quickly what bosses wanted.  If he thought the idea of a promotion sounded worth his while, he’d give those bosses what they wanted – or, if it seemed more trouble than it was worth, he’d simply let himself fade into the background, watching and celebrating as co-workers all around him were promoted to places of incompetence.

Despite all of this, Ianto didn’t make friends easily.  Acquaintances, yes – friends, no.  It was one thing to play to the whims of an employer, like figuring out what numbers to put into a math equation to get the best result, but it was quite another to simply be oneself and wait to see if someone liked you.  That was why Ianto was so surprised and honestly awed when he met Lisa Hallet, and she’d actually wanted to date him.  It wasn’t until then that Ianto realized how structured his life was, how linear, how mathematically he approached everything in his day – even the act of getting his coworkers coffee was a complete equation designed to make people happy or calm or talkative or productive.  With Lisa though (who was gregarious and spontaneous and everything that Ianto Jones most certainly was not), Ianto found himself… actually letting go a little.

When cancer had taken her life just two years later, after a grueling, slow decline of health that had left both her and Ianto gaunt and haggard, Ianto found that he didn’t really know how to have fun like that without someone else leading him.

That had been four years ago.  Anyone who had known Ianto before Lisa would think him little-changed: he was polite and sweet, incredibly helpful no matter how busy he was, and yet so inconspicuous and unremarkable that it was possible to forget that he was in a room until he appeared with a carafe of freshly-made coffee.  He climbed the corporate ladder almost by accident, always staying in the shadows, and making close acquaintances but rarely ever friends.

Which had made it quite easy for him to accept the job at Eigengrau as the secretary for M, the man in charge.  And so the cycle repeated, with Ianto tangentially connected to high-Pass agents and worldwide espionage and political battlefields that could potentially affect millions.  The only real change was that Gareth Mallory was ten times as intuitive as Ianto’s previous bosses, realizing on the first day that Ianto was there that this was more than a mild-mannered, mindless secretary.

“This coffee is very good,” M had said, when Ianto had brought some in.  Ianto had a knack for knowing what people needed and giving it to them before they could even think to ask, but he’d waited a bit in this case – because he figured that a man who ran a facility like Eigengrau would be a bit suspicious of a brand-new employee bringing him unsolicited liquids.  M had taken another appreciative sip, then sat back, and instead of dismissing Ianto had pointed to the chair across from his desk, “Now, I want you to sit, and tell me exactly how – and why – you figured out precisely how I like my coffee within twenty-four hours of arriving here.”

That had been the start of a somewhat closer relationship than Ianto usually had with his bosses.  Instead of being efficiently aloof, with Ianto moving mountains in the background without ever catching M’s (or anyone else’s) eye, Ianto found his work watched keenly and acknowledged – and before long, openly appreciated.  By the time Ianto had worked at Eigengrau for a month, he was tentatively sure that he was friends with Gareth Mallory, and was very sure that M didn’t miss a single thing that Ianto usually did behind the scenes.

Ianto had to wonder if perhaps he hadn’t become friends with Mallory, he might not be in this position right now, risking his neck and running through Eigengrau just one step ahead of what was probably certain death.

Panting and puffing for air, nearly missing the turn and skidding as he took the sharp left, Ianto began to wish that he were more athletic.  Running errands for M wasn’t exactly the most consistent form of exercise, and the stitch developing in his side was like a knife between Ianto’s ribs.  Of course, he was well aware that the men behind him – be they high-Pass agents or traitors newly come out of the woodwork – could put a literal knife between his ribs, and that kept the young man going.  So far, they hadn’t gotten close enough to see him, but apparently not everyone had been lured away into hunting Mallory.

The knowledge that Mallory was playing bait right now made something angry and helpless twist in Ianto’s chest.  That pushed him to run faster, too, because if M could do that, then the least Ianto could do was play his part, too.  Most of the people behind him probably weren’t even chasing Ianto directly, but simply racing to M’s office, after the same prize Ianto was: one of the keys that could truly free every killer in Eigengrau.

Ianto swerved into the next turn and stopped at M’s office door mostly by running into it, his momentum too great to do anything else.  He went to touch the keypad, to let himself in with codes he probably wasn’t supposed to have but did anyway (he was reasonably sure that M knew it but hadn’t ever commented), but then recalled there there was no power.  Everything was unlocked.  With trepidation and nerves making his throat tight and his heart hammer, Ianto put a hand on the doorknob, feeling it turn easily beneath his hand.  Part of him expected people to already be inside, so he sighed gustily in relief as he peeked in to find the place empty and apparently untouched.  Staggering now as the relief seemed to sink down into his legs, Ianto rounded M’s desk to find the sturdy little lockbox.  Since M hadn’t even bothered to give Ianto the combination when they’d parted ways, he apparently was aware that his secretary knew that number, too.  Inside were some important documents, but for the most part, M kept everything in his head – making M’s head even more important, but also making Ianto’s job easier, because he only had a few things that he needed to hide for safekeeping.

He’d just closed the lockbox and stood up with papers in one hand and collar-key in the other when someone else barreled into the room.

For a long second, they just stared at one another, both wide-eyed with adrenaline and surprise.  It took a second for Ianto to recognize 004’s Handler, Severine.  Unsure if she’d recognize him as quickly in return, and aware that she had a gun strapped to one curving hip, Ianto immediately raised his hands – showing them full, but not with anything dangerous – and quickly yelped, “Ianto Jones!  I’m Ianto Jones, M’s secretary.  Don’t shoot!”  When that bought him at least a few seconds in which the woman did nothing but stare at him, Ianto finished in a mad rush, “I came here to make sure that no one got their hands on these.”  He moved his hands a bit, and watched as the woman’s heavily kohled eyes flicked to the sheaf of papers and then the electronic, thumbdrive-shaped key.

She recognized the latter.  “The key for the collars,” she said in her softly-accented, smoky voice, sounding a bit breathless.

Slowly, Ianto lowered his hands, breathing easier as he realized he wasn’t about to be shot for stealing.  “It would be very dangerous for this to fall into the wrong hands, so M sent me to get it.”

“Where’s M?” Severine asked.

At first, Ianto felt a flicker of suspicion towards her – after all, who was to say who was friend and who was foe? – but there was such fear in her eyes that he doubted she was a part of this coup.  Honestly, she looked as afraid as he did, and she was _armed_.  “I don’t honestly know,” Ianto said with a shrug, “We split up, and not a bloody phone works in this whole place now.”  He stopped talking and tensed as he heard distant noises; danger was catching up with them.

Severine had noticed, too, her face paling but her lips also pursing into a tight, determined line.  “Come.  We have to move.”  She gestured for him to follow as she peeked out the door and declared it clear, for now.  “I came this way on the off-chance that M would be here, but what you carry is just as important,” she said gravely.

Ianto wanted to say something selfless and gallant, about how she didn’t have to do that, or she should just save herself, but all that came out was, “Thank you,” because he was glad to not be alone.

At least the emergency lights had come on, giving the halls a sickly, jaundiced sort of light, beating back the worst of the shadows as Severine began to lead them down the halls at a swiftly increasing pace.  Her legs were long and sleek, and soon Ianto was puffing again, trying to keep up.  They kept hearing sounds – gunshots, shouting, screaming, laughing – ricocheting down the halls to them, like sounds heard inside a maze.  It was almost impossible to get a picture of what was happening everywhere, and Ianto found himself looking around and flinching almost constantly, afraid that one of those sounds would suddenly appear from right next to them.  Ianto had been to a haunted house once as a child, and now the memory returned to him vividly and disturbingly, even as he gulped at the realization that all the ghosts here… were very much real.

They made it quite some ways before Ianto tripped.  It felt like he’d been running for hours, although in total, he imagined that only about thirty minutes had passed – still, that was more running that he’d probably done since high school track and field.  When he gracelessly fell, the papers went flying, but he kept a death-grip on the little collar-key.  Severine immediately turned and came back to him, wordlessly picking up the papers and tucking them up under her shirt.  Ianto caught a flash of tanned skin across her belly, but only for a second before she had the documents up against her skin and then her shirt covering it all.  It was a genius hiding place, really, insofar as it was nearly impossible to see the new layer of paper she wore around her stomach.  When she tucked her shirt quickly into her pants, the hiding place was complete, and then she helped Ianto to his feet.  “Come on.  We’ve left M’s office behind, but we aren’t safe,” she said, and he saw that fear again in her eyes.  The more he thought of it, the more he thought she always seemed afraid – which perhaps made her the smartest person in Eigengrau.  “You should hide that, too.”  The Handler gave a significant nod towards Ianto’s hand, where the key was indenting his palm from the strength of his grip.

Ianto felt himself begin to freeze up from fear, because telling him to hide something implied that there was a need to – that someone would be looking.

Severine met his eyes, saw the fear, and merely gave a sad little nod.  ‘I understand,’ the look said, and then she began tugging and pushing until they were both moving again, Severine now running with her gun drawn in one hand.

They made it as far as the section of Eigengrau dedicated to the mundane task of accounting, entering a room of desks and drawers and papers, before they were shot at.  

Severine was reacting, Ianto swore, before the shot was even heard.  Maybe she saw something; maybe her instincts had just been honed to that fine of a point.  Either way, she grabbed Ianto’s shirt with one hand, throwing him down behind a desk while she shot with her other hand, her aim suffering for it.  Ianto still saw their attackers withdraw suddenly back outside the room where they’d come from, everyone shouting and swearing – except for Severine, who was eerily quiet.  She ducked behind another desk for cover, her eyes clearly scanning for another exit, but before either she or Ianto could make a move, the other gunmen returned.  Even working in Eigengrau for weeks hadn’t accustomed Ianto to the gunshots, not like this, and he was ashamed by how quickly he ducked down against the floor, curled up like an egg with his hands over his ears.  He spared glances up at Severine when he could, but her eyes were wild and desperate, and he knew it was bad just from that.

Suddenly she looked at him, some of her long dark hair escaping its ponytail and sticking to the sweat upon her cheek.  Her eyes were narrowed and fierce as she shouted at him, “Go!  There’s a door, just behind that division.”  She jerked her head back over her shoulder, where a temporary well rose up higher than either of them, but not all the way to the ceiling.  “I can just see it from where I am.”

“What about-?”

“Don’t ask about me” she ordered, “Just _go_ , and don’t waste time-!”  Before she could finish, the sound of another gunshot cracked through the air, and Severine jerked and cried out.  Blood blossomed from her shoulder, an impossible shot up until now – but when Ianto and Severine turned their heads, they saw that they’d been flanked without noticing.

Teeth bared and panting with pain, Severine still lifted her gun in both hands, arms shuddering.  Nonetheless, her first shot winged the man who’d hit her, just as he himself tried to dive back into cover.  “GO, JONES!” she shrieked at him.

This time, her words were like a slap to the face, and his legs snapped into motion purely on autopilot.  He found himself racing towards Severine, then past her, feeling her slender hand grab his shirt only to propel him onwards.  Then she was twisting around to refocus on their initial shooters, laying down cover-fire that was deafening.  Ianto heard her reload once; quickly, efficiently.  He was past the divider, a door indeed coming into view-

The door opened, and C stood right in front of him, the shadows behind him filled with people.  Ianto had only seen the man in pictures, and he was hardly an intimidating man in person, but just the knowledge that this was the man behind this entire nightmare was enough to put pure terror in Ianto’s chest.  He skidded to a halt and looked desperately back the way he’d come.

He found himself looking at Severine, who was sitting with her back still against the desk, a bullet-hole right between her half-closed eyes.

“Save some fun for the next three days, everyone!” C’s voice rose up over the fading racket, as did his clapping as he started bringing his hands together in a steady, eerily slow rhythm.  Ianto felt like a rabbit in a snare, trapped by what encircled him.  He fully expected to be shot even as he spun around, taking note of gunman from all sides, coming out of their hiding places.  Someone walked up to Severine, nudging her callously with a toe, and suddenly Ianto felt courage spring up from somewhere.  He straightened, and bellowed, “Now you just fucking leave her alone!”

“Wow,” C whistled, and everyone turned to him.  Ianto felt uncertain and off-balance, taking in this spare little man who was even now smiling ruefully and rotating a finger in his ear as if emptying it out.  “You’ve got a set of lungs on you.”  Ianto curled his hands into fists and tried to stand his ground without trembling.  Out of the corner of his eye, he at least saw that no one else was bothering Severine’s corpse, which was the least that she deserved after she’d helped Ianto get this far.  In fact, the only reason Ianto was alive even now was probably due to her, although how much longer he’d last now that she was gone was anyone’s guess.  He wasn’t armed, and he wasn’t a trained fighter, and he was woefully outnumbered.

And that was before he recognized a high-Pass agent stepping out from behind C’s other men.

It wasn’t Root, which was a surprise; she’d clearly been with C at the time of his little speech on the intercom.  Instead, it was Agent 001, Jack Harkness, who looked shocked as he caught sight of Ianto of all people standing there in the thick of trouble.  Any Hound at all was capable of identifying Ianto as M’s right-hand-man, but out of all of them, Jack had the most dirt on Ianto, namely because he’d been sleeping with him…

“So, who might you be?” C said, smile showing all of his teeth and putting a too-bright glint in his eyes.  It was hard to meet his gaze – like staring into the abyss, and knowing that it was most definitely staring back.

“Jones,” he stuttered back, glued to those eyes, but managed to recover enough to gulp loudly and squeak, “Ian Jones.  I…”  Ianto knew for a fact that he was a terrible liar; that was one of the reasons he’d never really wanted a high-powered job.  Working in the shadows of powerful people required a lot less dishonesty than _being_ a powerful person.  Nonetheless, he was aware of the need to lie right now, so did his best, whispering with very real fear in his voice, “I work here.”

Perhaps it was the fact that that technically wasn’t a lie, but no one questioned him.  Unfortunately, the assumption that Ianto Jones was just ‘Ian Jones from Accounting’ was also quite disinteresting, so suddenly C’s eyes got reptilian and cold, and rolled from Ianto’s face to instead look past him as if he were nothing but an inanimate obstacle.  “Well, isn’t that dreadfully boring.  And here I was hoping for some fun.”  He waved a hand dismissively, and Ianto’s heart froze in his chest as the rogue Director-General said carelessly, “Carry on, boys and girls.  This is what I get for stopping the party, I suppose.”

Ianto swayed, feeling his world rocketing swiftly out of his control as he stared in horror at this man who doled out life and death so lackadaisically – and clearly valued the former not at all.  The Welshman was aware, to the marrow of his bones, that he was about to feel what a bullet was like when it tore through vital organs, when suddenly Harkness stepped forward and raised a polite hand for attention.  “Actually, I want to keep him.”

Everyone turned and look, surprised and perplexed, but when C turned around, there was at least some sincere intrigue lighting his fine-featured face.  In fact, a little leer pulled knowingly at his mouth.  “Now this _is_ unexpected.  Any particular reason you think an accountant would be a useful addition to our little gang?”

Harkness was looking right at Ianto, but the man’s devastatingly handsome face was an enigma; Ianto couldn’t see past the mask-like smile pasted in place, or the coolly assessing blue-grey eyes.  “Actually, I was thinking more of having him as a pet.  How the hell should I know what good an accountant is for?” Jack volleyed back.

Now everyone started chuckling, and Ianto looked uneasily around him, the sound like the low growl of hungry wolves.

“Plus, you hear that accent?” Jack continued to state his case, as charismatic as Ianto remembered, but a lot colder, “Sexy as hell.  Of course I want that.  What else is my newfound freedom for?”

“You’re not free yet,” C reminded, a sliver of ice in his voice, too.

Jack’s smile never wavered, but perhaps it did freeze in place for a second as he and C locked eyes.  “I figure there’s no reason to die of boredom up until then,” he returned with an icicle tone of his own.

For a moment, the two matched gazes.  Harkness was bigger and stronger, an athletic man in his prime with all the deadly training that came with being a high-Pass agent for as long as he had.  It was unsettling to be reminded so harshly that Jack, beneath the smiles and flirtatious banter (and sweet words, and gentle touches, when he was with Ianto in private), was still a Hound.  He’d killed people, and his morals didn’t work like normal people’s morals did.  He was, in a nutshell, a highly functional monster.

Ianto just hadn’t seen the monster until now.

Everyone was jeering and laughing now, and Ianto’s cheeks had gone red simply at the dozen gazes he could now see running over him.  Self-conscious and deeply uncomfortable, he shifted his weight as if to hide, only to realize that there was still nowhere to go.  Panicked, he looked back to Jack, but the agent was still smiling that chilling smile at C.  Ianto realized with horror that he didn’t recognize those eyes anymore, and that realization hurt like a blow to the solar plexus.

Finally, C’s small smirk spread to a beatific grin, and he spread his arms to declare, “Let it never be said that I’m not a giving man.  I suppose it’s none of my business what you do with the peons of this place.”  Giggling, C turned around to keep walking the way he’d been going, but Ianto could hear him giggling madly, “A _pet_?  What will everyone think of next…?  I should have thought of that.”

As quickly as that, everyone turned and started moving again like one big pack.  “Devinshire!  Go rendezvous with Moran,” C called back in a suddenly commanding roar.

Jack appeared like a big shadow at Ianto’s side, his grip on the Welshman’s arm bruisingly tight.  “Can I go with them?” the agent asked as if he were asking if he could join friends for a trip to the park.

C looked back over his shoulder, eyes almost xyresically keen, but all he said was, “Just be sure you make yourself useful.”

Ianto wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected the faint undercurrent of threat in that voice.  If Jack heard it, he ignored it, shrugging and replying jubilantly, “I’m always useful!  Why’d you think I hooked up with you guys?”

A few chuckles met the playful comment, and Jack was swallowed up by the ranks of those men breaking off from the main group – and thanks to his hold on Ianto’s arm, the ‘accountant’ was dragged along with him.  Fear clamping like a vice around his chest, Ianto started to struggle, only to be yanked forward – he’d never realized that Jack was so strong.  “Come on, Jones,” Jack coaxed, catching Ianto’s eye, but Ianto couldn’t tell what he was supposed to read from that gaze.  He was too busy recollecting the way Jack’s eyes had been as flat as glass when he’d talked about keeping Ianto as a pet just because he had a sexy voice.  Just because he wanted to enjoy himself while gallivanting around with a group of murderers while waiting to be freed from Eigengrau.

Another tug ensured that Ianto had to walk in step with Harkness, closer than the man’s own darkly cast shadow.  “If you don’t keep up,” the man joked in a tone that sounded as idle as a spring day, “I’ll have to carry you, and you’ll have even more people staring at your ass than you have already.”

The comment was not appreciated, and Ianto had the urge to glare – because Harkness was always on the verge of sexual harassment even on a good day – but instead he suppressed it, sincerely afraid that one wrong look would get him killed… or worse.  Jack knew exactly who he was, and while he didn’t know why Jack had withheld that information, he definitely knew that Harkness held all the cards right now, and could destroy Ianto with barely any effort at all.

~^~

Q did not like this plan.

Q did not see any way out of this plan.

007’s proposal to share a bed seemed born not only out of logic, but perhaps out of some convoluted need to solidify their position as allies, and as much as Q wanted to be both warm and protected, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be within arms’ reach of a high-Pass agent while he slept.

“I’ll do it, but only on two conditions,” Q demanded in a brittle voice, still huddled deep in the blanket on the sofa, shivering as the heat-packs grew less and less effective at holding back the chill.  It wasn’t winter yet, but Eigengrau was not known for its good weather, and without the heating system up and running, the building was soon going to get unbearably cold from the outside in.  This branch of Medical was near an outer wall.

It didn’t help that James was looking unbearably amused by all of this, as if making another person deeply uncomfortable was a rare treat for him – or perhaps a game.  Still perched on the edge of the bed, he looked almost ridiculously inviting, with long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, and his brawny arms crossed over his chest.  Even though he wore a thick denim jacket, his athletic build was easy to see, which didn’t help because it just made him seem all the more dangerous.  “Fine.  Name them.” James made it clear that he’d face any challenge.

Q was hoping to call his bluff.  “First, you find me a shirt without blood all over it,” he said a bit crossly, looking at the floor where his own top layers were all blood-stained and in a heap.

“Easily done, if you don’t mind scrubs.”

“I don’t mind anything that will keep me from running around half-naked,” Q said honestly.  “I’m not much to look at even when I don’t have stitches and massive bruising.”  Not wanting to hear 007’s witty comment on that, Q wriggled his undamaged right arm free to poke out of the blanket, and lifted two fingers to continue, “And secondly, the only way I’m going to get any sleep when I’m that close to you is if you let me sleep with my hand around your throat.”

Q awarded himself an imaginary point as his demand gained the desired effect: James tensed up in surprise and that infernal smile fell away.  Caution was written all over the agent’s expression, and blue eyes flicked over Q’s face as if trying to read between the lines.  Q just sat where he was, still aching, tired, and highly stressed, but now feeling as though he’d at least given his ally/enemy pause.

“That’s your second demand?” James deadpanned.

Holding his ground, Q nodded.  “Yup.”

A large part of Q expected 007 to back down, which would leave Q with heating issues, true, but would probably help his mental stability a lot in the long run.  He was fairly certain that if he was wrangled into sleeping with a high-Pass agent, he’d lose his ever-loving mind-

“Fine.”  Q stared, thunderstruck, as James stood up and nodded in acceptance.  “Let me find you a shirt.”  James walked over, and Q didn’t realize that he was just sitting and staring with jaw agape until the high-Pass agent reached out and put a finger under Q’s chin, gently exerting upward pressure until Q snapped his mouth shut with a blush.  James’s grin was incorrigible.  “What, didn’t think I’d see the logic in your demands?” the agent challenged quietly.

Q couldn’t find anything to say.  Today had fried his brain.  He merely shook his head, wordlessly stupefied by this entire situation.

Looking amused and smug, 007 strolled out of the room, calling back before he began his hunt for clothing, “If you want to run, now’s your chance, but I don’t like your odds of surviving for long without my help.”

As much as Q wanted to argue with that, he knew it was true.  Sagging back under his blanket again, Q sighed and stared in bewilderment as where Bond had been a minute ago.  ‘ _How the hell did this become my life_?’ he asked himself in all seriousness.

Bond was as good as his word, returning with a nurse’s scrub top, its color indistinguishable in the dim lighting.  The agent also returned with an armload of extra blankets and more heat-packs, which was good, because the temperature kept dropping as night grew deeper, and Q’s heat-packs were losing their warmth.  Q pulled on the shirt wincingly while James made up the bed with all the blankets, and activated the heat-packs to toss into the bed like the finishing touch of some strange nest.  By the time 007 turned around again, Q was standing uncertainly and a bit unsteadily, injured arm wrapped around his lower ribs and his other arm curled around it defensively.  “Take your shoes off, but keep them by the side of the bed,” James advised in a tone that said he knew what he was doing, “I blocked all the doorways pretty well, and the cold will convince a lot of people to just find warmer places to loiter – but if we need to move, I want you to be able to do it fast.”  James was following his own advice, Q noticed, circling to the other side of the bed and toeing off his shoes but keeping them close.  He also took his purloined gun (and ammo, Q noted) and set it on the nearby tray-table.  Then, surprisingly, James skinned off his denim jacket, so he was wearing just a black turtleneck pullover underneath.  He tossed the jacket across the bed, making Q jump as it thumped onto the blankets in front of him.  “Pull it on.  You’ll need help with body-heat more than I will,” James said, words factual but smile perhaps a bit wry.

Q decided not to argue, but instead pulled the jacket to him, still feeling the warmth of its wearer in the material.  As he drew it on, he could smell gun oil and musky cologne, and the faint smell of simply well lived-in clothes.  It made him feel unexpectedly closer to 007 than he had expected, moreso somehow than the prospect of sharing a bed with him.

“The bed’s ready whenever you are, princess,” James drawled wryly as Q stalled with the coat.  When the Quartermaster looked up from easing his injured arm into the sleeve, he saw 007 already under the covers, technically occupying only half the bed, but already seeming to take up all the space and then some.  Q nearly chickened out then, but the gnawing cold and his own soul-deep fatigue had him moving without his brain’s consent.

Shivering perhaps from cold and perhaps from silent, unadulterated terror, Q pulled back the layers of blankets and gingerly got in.  He brushed against heat-packs, his socked toes in particular appreciating the radiant pockets of warmth, but soon he was well and truly in 007’s personal space – it was like cozying up next to a leviathan, a monster of lore that he’d known was terrifying in theory, but only now was facing in practice.  He found himself breathing too fast again, already lying down but with his body seizing up and eyes staring blindly at the hollow of Bond’s throat.

It was reflex – a survival instinct buried deep in Q’s hindbrain from wilder times, and perhaps it was this same instinct that had gotten him to make his demand in the first place.  Just as he felt himself tipping into a panic attack, Q recalled his second condition, and felt the muscles of his arm moving on autopilot.  He was lying on his right, uninjured side, and his left arm hurt, but it didn’t hurt enough to stop Q from reaching forward and wrapping his fingers around 007’s throat.  He didn’t mean to squeeze, but he was so _terrified_ that he couldn’t help it, and bore down a bit with his fingertips, feeling soft cloth and firm skin and the outline of the collar against the side of his hand.  The most shocking thing was that James didn’t try to stop him.  True, the agent noticeably tensed – Q could feel the tendons of his neck drawing taut like cables, and could even feel the rush of his indrawn breath – but considering that he could have attacked, it was a remarkably tame reaction.  Q accepted it with almost giddy relief.

“Comfortable, Quartermaster?” James asked with exaggerated politeness a moment later, once Q’s hand relaxed again.

“I’ve got multiple stitches, second-degree burns, had the shit kicked out of me, and while the drugs might be helping with the pain,” Q retorted with just a teensy bit of hysteria in his voice, “they haven’t done a bloody thing to get me to forget that I’m basically living in a horror movie.”

“Sleep will be good for that,” 007 assured.

Q dared to look up at him, seeing quietly watchful blue eyes very near his, seemingly untroubled by any of this.  “Will I wake up to find out that this is just a terrible nightmare?” he asked, only half joking.

James sighed and rolled his eyes instead of answering, but he also moved unexpectedly.  Q held his breath, a spark of adrenaline making his heart rabbit, and he once again clenched his fingers around 007’s throat.  It was quickly becoming apparent that Q perhaps didn’t have enough strength in his hand to be a real threat this way, but it seemed to convince James to move slower – telegraphing his movements this time, he slowly shifted closer, ending with an arm over Q’s side.  A leg soon followed, eased over Q’s hips and making the younger man shudder more at the touch than because of cold this time.  007 used his grip to gently ease Q closer, but every movement was as exceedingly careful as it was unstoppable.  Q barely even squeaked as the weight of Bond’s arm settled near bruised ribs – because even then, Bond adjusted obediently, apparently mindful of the slight threat of Q’s hand.

Q didn’t know what to think.  On the one hand, 007 had a documented history of killing, and had proven time and again on missions that he could kill without hesitation before or remorse after, and he’d even killed his own Handlers.  On the other hand, Q would have died earlier or frozen half to death, but instead was patched up, bundled under blankets with a very warm body to ensure he stayed toasty, and had 007’s promise of protection.  He couldn’t tell which side of 007 was real and was having an equally hard time reconciling the two.

“Just go to sleep, Q,” 007 rumbled into the darkness between the sheets.  Q’s palm tingled with the vibrations of the man’s vocal chords, and the boffin was quietly floored by this freely given vulnerability - this throat beneath his hands.  “Give that mad brain of yours a rest.  We’ll need it in the morning.”

Finally too tired and worn out to argue, Q took the order at face value, and almost instantly tumbled into a heavy and dreamless sleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! I got them in bed together ^_^ *proud of myself face*
> 
> Up next: the awkward morning... and trouble for absolutely everyone (because that's basically what this fic is)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which Will finds himself in danger, because with Eigengrau under siege, people are getting paranoid... and looking for someone to take out their fears on... 
> 
> Will - strange and different Will - is a perfect target.
> 
> Until he isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't heard Karliene's ['Become the Beast'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmVzeriU5m0), then now might be a good time to listen to the Youtube video, because this is one fan-made Hannigram song that will give you chills (and, coincidentally, inspired much of this chapter)

Day 1 of the Siege of Eigengrau

~^~

If anyone were smart enough to ask the right question, Hannibal would have said that he had always been a predator – but Eigengrau had made him a monster.  Predators killed for food, out of necessity, or when they were crossed.  Generally speaking, in that last instance, the people who crossed Hannibal represented members of society who were best removed from the gene pool anyway, so he was really doing humanity a favor by ending those lives.  It was exceedingly rare that Hannibal ever killed actually pleasant people, and in either case, he made good use of them – whether the carcass it came from was a good person or a bad one, Hannibal could always find an exceptional cut or two.  A good meal was its own reward after a successful hunt.   

The Sybil System did not agree, and neither did anyone in Eigengrau.  Even now, though, Hannibal didn’t consider himself a cannibal, because that implied eating one’s equal, something that he’d never consider doing and most certainly had never done.  It was simply a fact, however, that Eigengrau had given him a lot more reasons to want to kill people, and when the man on the intercom had spoken of animals in zoos, Hannibal understood.  A tiger in the wild was a beautiful thing, and while it would no doubt eat a human from time to time, its predations were generally considered acceptable – caged up and fed only day-old cuts of second-rate beef, however, even the most noble of tiger would begin to consider opportunities to become a man-eater.

Hannibal generally only ate people who threatened to ruin his livelihood or who offended him, and in Eigengrau, that was very nearly everyone.  It was a miracle that he didn’t kill _more_.

The helicopter pilot, however, wasn’t his handiwork.  He was curious as to why someone would want to pin their murder on an already convicted man, but mostly he was offended that anyone could be so stupid and blind as to think him responsible for such shoddy work.  When Hannibal had talked his way into the scene of the crime, he’d been able to tell from a distance, in seconds, that whoever had done this hadn’t even wielded a professional butcher-knife before, much less a scalpel as Hannibal had.  For sure, the actual killer knew his way around a knife, but not in any way that showed a respect and knowledge for the meat he was dealing with.  It was absurd that anyone could think this Hannibal’s work.

Yet everyone did.

Except one man named _Will Graham_.

Since Hannibal had had little else to do while he was locked up, he’d asked a lot of questions about the dark-haired young man at the crime scene.  Hannibal was always on his best behavior even when he was secretly plotting the death of everyone in Eigengrau, so it wasn’t long before he coaxed his guards into chatting with him and giving him the information that he wanted.  It was surprisingly easy, despite Will apparently being new, because it seemed that nearly everybody disliked the man.  Most of this dislike came from the single encounter at the scene of Captain Connor White’s murder, which Hannibal found quite ironic, because his own impressions had been so different.  Hannibal had arrived at the scene just as Will was getting warmed up, it seemed, but while Hannibal had found Will’s clear, brutal description of events to be intriguing and almost breathtaking, everyone else seemed to have found it deeply disturbing.

Hannibal had said little, but watched attentively with an expression that he knew encouraged speaking, while his three guards discussed Will Graham.

“They brought him in here as some top-notch profiler from the States, but if you ask me, they should’ve just collared him at the gate.  The guy’s mental.”

“I’ve talked to one of the men he transferred in with.  All of them are pretty convinced that he’s high-Pass, but just hasn’t been caught yet.”

“Does that happen?”

“People not getting caught?  Dunno.  But I have to agree – even if the Sybil System hasn’t ordered his arrest, there’s something wrong in that brain of his.  No one describes the methods of a murderer as if they _are_ the murderer, at least not that naturally.”

“Yeah, I mean, shit – where did he even get some of those details?  I was half convinced myself that we’d be arresting him.  Why didn’t we?”

“I believe,” Hannibal finally reentered the conversation, secretly amused as everyone jumped and look at him almost guiltily – they’d dismissed his presence simply because he was silent and behind bars, “the reason Mr. Graham was not taken into custody was because everyone else agreed that they’d already caught the person responsible.”

There were uncomfortable mumbles of agreement, because the three guards were aware of that, but didn’t know how to say so with Hannibal right in front of them.  Even with bars in between them, they were cowards, and behind his polite expression, Hannibal was sneering at them in quiet disgust.

These were the men who thought they had the right to keep him collared?

Now there was a man promising to get the collar off, but Hannibal was still less interested in that than he was in Will Graham.  He’d never seen anything like him, and Hannibal had seen many things in his lifetime – enough so that he found most of humanity dull and boring.  When he’d paused in the doorway to the crime-scene, however, and seen Will, his curiosity had been piqued.  The young man was not particularly threatening, physically.  His eyes were large and sensitive, dark irises to match his dark, messily curled hair, and Hannibal had a lot of muscle weight on him, not to mention a bit of height.  It had been Will’s voice, though: so confident that the air rang with it, he’d spoken of a kill that would have made most people squeamish.  He’d been unhesitant, and so obviously at home within his skin that it had actually been a shock to Hannibal to see the real Will emerge after the nearest guardsmen had physically pulled Will back to himself.

That had been when Hannibal had gone from merely curious to deeply intrigued. The real Will Graham was quiet, shy, and almost pathologically avoidant of eye-contact in a way that made Hannibal begin to suspect that Will might be somewhere on the autism spectrum.  For all that, however, the dark-haired young man was clearly still very competent, even if his confidence seemed to have shattered when he came back to himself.

And then Will had finally looked at him, into his eyes, and Hannibal had gone from intrigued to ravenously enamored.  Hannibal was incredibly perceptive, almost supernaturally so, some people told him, but never had he found someone else able to match that – yet he’d seen when Will stepped out of one killer’s mind and just barely dipped his toe into another’s.  Into the bloody ocean that was Hannibal.

It had been like rejoining two ends of a severed artery, to say that last word – “Artless” – and know that Will was going to say it with him.

Hannibal wanted to know what kind of mind could do that: could look at a crime scene and absorb it so totally as to inhabit the skin of the killer for a little while, and then just as quickly do the same again, to another man, to someone who was not used to being understood.  Hannibal had successfully hidden what he was for decades, even outsmarting the Sibyl System for awhile before the machine and its trillion eyes bested him – yet Will Graham had understood him in seconds.  That, more than Will’s valiant attempt to stand up for Hannibal’s innocence, had him hooked, and even the promise of freedom wasn’t worth more than that.

Hannibal was, by the time of his release, aware of precisely where Will Graham’s unit slept.  It wasn’t terribly far away, and under normal circumstances would be a rather uninspiring chase – the new circumstances, however, in which all of Eigengrau had been thrown into a state of primitive chaos – made things significantly more interesting.  In making his way towards Will’s quarters, Hannibal saw no fewer  than four skirmishes, although he was only forced to get involved in one.  Banal fights were wastes of his time, so he only fought back to keep himself alive until he could disentangle himself, leaving one new corpse behind and only a few new bruises on himself.

When Will’s quarters were empty, Hannibal wasn’t surprised, but it was a place to start.  He took a moment to inspect the various bunks, gleaning bits and pieces of information about each boring person who had slept there, before quickly zeroing in on what had to be Will Graham’s bunk.  A computer had been left behind, and while it froze up and then shut down not long after Hannibal opened it, he gleaned quite a lot before that.  Will Graham had been studying the high-Pass agents.  All of them.  But Hannibal’s file had been the one presently sitting open on the screen the moment it had lit up.  It was… strangely flattering.

That had been late last night.  Now, Hannibal could sense morning rolling in despite the thick walls between himself and the outside world.  He could sense it in the anticipant shivering of the air, as they approached that ‘last cold,’ the hours of morning where temperatures dropped without warning as if trying to dig in their claws before true dawn drove them out.  Hannibal wasn’t tired yet, and he still had some hunting to do.  

~^~

Will could understand that they were in a dangerous situation, but the paranoia had to stop.  “This is literally the third time that you’ve shot at nothing,” he gritted out, his frustration towards his cohort overriding his usual reticence.

Five sets of eyes turned to him with varying levels of annoyance that he’d criticize them, and surprise that he’d spoken at all.

“You do realize that we’re basically in a funhouse full of killers now, right?” McKenna snapped, and Will didn’t have to look in his eyes to read the threat in his tone and posture.  Will looked away, regretting his words already.  “Would you rather I just sit back and _watch_ when a Hound does come around the corner to try and kill us all?”

Despite his intentions to shut his trap, Will found himself replying irritably, “No, but I would rather you not accidentally shoot an innocent person just because you got spooked.  There are a lot more low-Pass than high-Pass people in this building.”

Everyone had stopped walking now.  When the madman’s voice had first sounded over the intercom, everyone had mobilized – different cohorts were sent in different directions to try and maintain order, or protect the unarmed employees.  Will strongly suspected that his cohort, following one of McKenna’s close friends, had taken a wrong turn a few halls back, meaning they were now lost.  Still, they’d kept moving instead of backtracking, until now as they all swiveled around to glare at Will.

Something mean glinted in McKenna’s eyes.  “Well, you know what I think – I think that there’s at least one more high-Pass bastard than anyone realizes.”

Will’s eyebrows drew together, and he briefly made eye-contact with McKenna to show just how sincerely he didn’t follow where this was going.  “What?”

“ _You_ ,” McKenna willingly emphasized, swiping his gun up briefly like a pointing utensil, making Will’s heart leap momentarily into his throat, “I’m talking about you, Graham.”  The gun went back down again, at least.

Surprisingly, one of the other guardsmen spoke up for Will, eyes flicking uneasily between the pair, “Hey, just leave ’im be, McKenna, this isn’t the time to be picking fights.”

Sadly, McKenna was having none of it, eyes still zeroed in on Will like the sight on a sniper-rifle.  “I’m not picking a fight, I’m pointing out a threat.  And we are out here to eliminate threats, aren’t we?”

Will began to get sincerely uneasy at that point.  Up until now, McKenna and his ilk had gossiped pretty heavily behind his back, but never to his face, and now he could sense a crackling tension around the man in front of him like the tingling in the air right before a lightning strike.  McKenna wasn’t just blustering; he was on the verge of becoming a very real danger.  Will forced himself to meet McKenna’s eyes a little, stating firmly, like he would have with one of his dogs back home if they were misbehaving, “You know what I think?  I think that stressful, life-threatening situations are the most common cause of sudden increases in Psychopasses – listen to yourself, McKenna.”

Things began to devolve.  Someone else spoke up: “No, I’m with McKenna.  Was anyone else there when Graham was pokin’ around that dead chopper pilot?  I saw it and, Graham…”  The man’s eyes turned to Will, who stiffened even as the eyes on him darkened.  “…You’re not normal.  You’re messed up.  You were defending _Hannibal Lecter_.”

“All I was doing was my job,” Will defended, getting frustrated.  He didn’t deal with people well, partially because he’d spent so much of his life avoiding close human interaction; as a result, it was hard to maintain a grasp on manners and social niceties when his patience wore down.  “Agent 003 might have committed loads of other murders, but not that one.”

“Then who did?” McKenna challenged.

Flustered and caught off-guard, Will stumbled, looking away again, “I-I don’t know.  Someone with a military background but no medical training, probably Black Ops, or whatever the British equivalent is.  They wanted it to look like Hannibal’s work-”

“What do you think, boys?” McKenna interrupted, eyeing Will but clearly talking to everyone else.  Will’s words stumbled to a halt, and McKenna went on, “If this is a frame-job, then what are the odds we’re looking at the copycat right now?”  This time, even the man who’d stood up for Will was silent; the mood was turning uglier by the second.

“I didn’t do it!” Will finally just snapped back, then reined in his anger and tried for logic, breathing deeply, “Whoever killed Captain White was taller than me anyway.”

“But how do you even know that?” someone else protested.

And another: “How did you know _any_ of that shit you said?”

Feeling overwhelmed, Will backed up, but the rest of his cohort followed.  Somewhere amidst the questions and accusations being volleyed at him, someone shoved Will, and he nearly lost his balance.  Very real fear flared brighter in his hindbrain, and he swallowed, actively resisting the urge now to reach for his gun – but then McKenna punched him, and good intentions went right out the window.  Will was being turned on by his own cohort, the people who were supposed to be his allies and have his back.  The irony of that was so bitter that it was like an actual taste in Will’s mouth – but no, that was blood.  His lip had sliced open against his teeth, and now his mouth tasted like copper, and there was more to come, because everyone was advancing now.  Will could tell by their faces that some of them simply thought they were doing what they had to in order to survive; some believed they were doing the right thing; the rest, like McKenna, just wanted to kill the stranger, kill the odd one out, the one they didn’t understand and therefore feared…

At the same time that Will clumsily blocked another punch, he realized that his empathy was intensifying, as if the adrenaline was feeding it.  He didn’t want to understand these men, though – he already knew that regardless of their reasoning and impulses, they were going to try and beat him to death, or outright shoot him if they paused long enough to consider it.  McKenna had switched his rifle over to one hand, freeing up the other to punch Will - but now he had it in a two-handed grip again, and only hesitancy was keeping him from raising it.  ‘ _Coward_ ,’ a voice in the back of Will’s head said, and it took him a moment to realize that the voice wasn’t his, but an echo of a criminal he’d investigated two months ago.  She’d been a rare creature: a female serial killer, and her targets had been rapists.  She’d seen them all as cowards, and had humiliated them before castrating then killing them.  A black belt and a powerfully built woman, she’d definitely shown her targets what it meant to attack someone who would fight back.  Will had found it easy to empathize with her and like her at the time, despite her murderous nature, and it was easy to pull up a bit of her mind again.  He swayed away from another punch, recalling the easy torsion of her back as she… he… they… had toyed with cornered serial rapists, letting them fight a bit before utterly destroying them.

Will found himself beginning to smile, a lopsided pull of his mouth that wasn’t his.

More shades began to surface, the first like plant shoots through a sidewalk, splitting it wider with each inch that pushed through.  Will felt again the killer of Captain White: the easy confidence, the cold detachment, and the perfectly balanced tread that it had taken to sneak up on a man without being noticed.  Will dodged another attack, swerving and twisting lightly on the balls of his feet, then executed a sharp rabbit-punch with unerring accuracy.  It struck the elbow of the man who’d just missed him, and when there was a sickening crunch and a scream, Will felt nothing, because Will was barely Will anymore.

The Minnesota Cutter had been an underground fighter before orchestrating his own fights, with lethal ends: Will weathered the butt of a rifle against his torso by clenching his stomach muscles and turning to deaden the blow because he’d done this before.  The Minnesota Cutter had done this before.

The Southward Sniper had always felt like weapons were an extension of his body, and Will felt his heartbeat and his breathing fall into an instant, familiar rhythm just as he reached his hands – the Sniper’s hand – to his holster, drawing the weapon without hesitation because he’d been shot in the head in the line of duty, and his emotions hadn’t worked the same since.  Will Graham had too many emotions, but the Sniper had none, and Will shot his furthest enemy right through the eye.  The Sniper didn’t know what to do with enemies close up, but Will had personalities to spare.

The Alexei Bomber usually stuck to explosives, but had killed her own mother up close by striking out against her throat, a wild, blind, angry attack that Will had relived a dozen times just to get closer to her, to learn about her.  Now he did it again, reliving the action in real time and screaming as she had, although he was briefly startled by the deeper timbre of his own voice – and the fact that his victim was a man with buzzed-short hair.  The result was the same, with the victim collapsing, gurgling around a crushed windpipe.

In the name of catching killers, Will had stepped into the minds of scores of dangerous men and women – and since coming to Eigengrau, he’d studied the minds of still more.  Now the door opened the other way.   _They_ walked into _him_ , and Will took the knowledge of whatever killer he needed in order to survive.  By the time Will’s cohort realized that they’d have to use more than good old fashioned fists to deal with Will Graham, it was already too late.  They’d shoved the good, compassionate Will down deep, and had forced all of Will’s demons out into the open.   

~^~

From the shadows of an adjoining hallway, Hannibal stared in awe as if he were watching the birth of a new sun.  He’d seen the way Will Graham had stepped into the shoes of Captain White’s killer, cohabiting with that killer for awhile like a medium sharing space with a ghost for a time – but that had apparently been but a shadow of Will’s skills.  Hannibal had suspected that there was more to Will Graham than met the eye, but he honestly hadn’t dared to hope for a creature such as this.

Hannibal had seen Will fighting his way back to himself, at the crime scene days ago.  He’d seen the way the two states of being clashed: the amoral killer with the very moral Will Graham.  Hannibal had also come upon this little tableau as the group was in the midst of arguing, and he’d seen Will trying for a peaceable solution.  It had nearly made Hannibal laugh – you couldn’t reason with beasts once they’d become scared.

You could only kill them then, before they caused you harm.

Watching dispassionately, amused by how ironic it was that these men feared Will when there was an Eigengrau inmate just meters away, Hannibal began to lose interest in Will.  His reactions were pedestrian, if laudable in a naïve sort of way.  Any other good person would react like this, if pressed – and Will would probably die like any other good person, and Hannibal wasn’t sure whether it would be worth the effort to save him.  He was still very curious about the little quirks of Will’s mind, so maybe he would…

Then the first punch was thrown, and Hannibal began to see that Will Graham’s skills went beyond the mere taste he’d given everyone at the Cooper White crime scene.

It wasn’t subtle, the transition; Hannibal could see it clearly.  Will’s entire body-language changed, from the set of his feet that spoke of sudden, steady balance to the angle of his head and shoulders that radiated angry contempt.  It took a few more movements for Hannibal to be sure, and by then he was starting to smile, marveling at the way Will began to walk differently, body held like a boxer.  Will Graham had been an easy target to hit, but this new version of him was far more elusive and suddenly eager to fight.

The next blow to get past Will’s defenses transformed him again.  And again.  Quietly amazed now, Hannibal watched with analytical eyes and was able to detect (with reasonable certainty) nearly a dozen different identities taking turns in the single man before him.  Each carried different skills – or different kinds of ruthlessness.  Hannibal smirked almost fondly as someone managed to wing the dark-haired young man with a bullet, and suddenly Will was swearing in French, before getting back up again as sinuously as a snake.  It was hard to say which impressed Hannibal more: the suddenly fluid, fearless way in which Will moved in that moment, or his perfect accent.

It clearly wasn’t a refined science, Hannibal noted next.  He’d have been immensely surprised if Will had any control over what was happening.  In fact, soon the lines began to blur between one borrowed persona and the next, and while it continued to give Will an edge, the lack of refinement cost him.  Hannibal frowned and tilted his head in regret, watching as the tables began to turn inevitably against Will.  The odds had been against him from the start, of course – five against one rarely went in favor of the one, outside of vainglorious Hollywood movies.  That being said, Will had already reduced that number by three, so Hannibal decided to wait it out.  If he got involved now, it would taint the results, and he wanted to see what the infamous Will Graham would do when pushed to the limits.

Will had lost his gun, but he’d also spent time methodically disarming opponents, or fighting in quarters too close for rifles to be useful.  There was still one armed man left, a fellow who this whole time had been yelling panicked obscenities that took some effort for Hannibal to tune out.  Now, the man brought his rifle to bear again, clearly intending to finish what he’d started with the bullet to Will’s right shoulder – a shot that had probably been meant to keep Will, who appeared to be right-handed, from shooting anyone, but then Will had become suddenly left-handed, which had amused and impressed Hannibal greatly.  Will was on the floor with the other remaining guardsman, grappling, and Will was like an adder.  Had it been Hannibal holding the rifle, he’d have shot then – the risk of collateral damage would have been worth the gain of taking out a dangerous entity.  The rifleman clearly wasn’t as pragmatic as Hannibal, however, and shouted to his companion instead, at which point Will’s expression suddenly went flat and cold.  Hannibal felt a thrill in his veins, something he usually only felt while killing, as he recognized a new killer taking up residence in Will’s mind.  Will freed up just one fist and snapped it out, sending his knuckles crushing into his opponent’s throat.  It was all done with the kind of precision that Will on his own probably didn’t have.  

This was the correct use of a mind; this was the pinnacle of both empathy and efficiency.  It was raw and unpolished, yes, but Hannibal could see within there the truest diamond he had ever imagined, and it was breathtaking when Will kicked out – shoving his choking wrestling partner away – and then spun almost without looking.  He leapt off the floor and right into the path of the rifle as if it meant nothing to him.

It was a move that even the predator in Hannibal could respect.  Predators knew that even the smallest injury could render them unable to hunt, sentencing them to a slow death by starvation.  However, Hannibal was a thinking predator – more than instincts and hungers – and he knew the value of being willing to take measures more extreme than one’s opponent could stomach.  It was the man who was willing to dance with Death who would ultimately survive the experience.

Will danced now, and fortune favored his boldness as the rifle went off over his shoulder this time, just as Will lurched up and shoved the weapon higher, tackling the gun’s owner as he did so.  When they landed, Will positioned his hands in a way that Hannibal knew very well, and without looking away or even blinking, snapped the other man’s neck.

It was a swift killing method that Hannibal had used many a time, like a lioness burying her teeth in the spinal cord of a zebra to avoid being kicked to death.  Will was smaller and not as physically strong as Hannibal, of course, so the break was sloppier, but still effective.  By the time the job was done and Will was kneeling atop a corpse, the profiler was panting, all but gasping for air – understandable, considering he’d just killed five people in under fifteen minutes.

Will was bleeding from the nose, the shoulder, the mouth, and had taken blows that had opened up small but messy cuts on his right cheekbone and eyebrow.  He had blood on him from one man that he’d shot at close range, right before being disarmed himself.  In short, he was a mess, but to Hannibal he looked glorious.  He was a wolf rising from a good kill after a long hunt, blood staining his white fur a jeweled red.  Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, it looked like Will’s many ‘borrowed’ personalities were losing their grip, and Hannibal began walking forward at about the time Will began looking around himself in confusion.  Will’s eyes, previously so alien and cold and manic by turns, became soft and sensitive again, the brows above them furrowing.

Unaware of Hannibal as yet, Will stumbled to his feet, then nearly tripped and fell back down again.  Graceless now, he staggered, beginning to shake so hard that it looked like his bones were all rebelling in their joints.  Sweat had plastered his shirt to his chest beneath his Eigengrau-issued jacket, and he was panting open-mouthed.  Hannibal coolly diagnosed a panic attack, or a minor fit of some sort, as Will’s eyes jerked all around him but seemed unable to focus on anything.  The dark-haired man made a little choked noise, looking suddenly small, lost, and fragile.  

Unafraid that Will would do anything at this point – so long as Hannibal played by the rules and made it clear that he didn’t pose a threat, it seemed unlikely that the violence would start again – Hannibal approached.  Will’s head belatedly jerked towards him, bewilderment still written all over his face, but when he tensed up, Hannibal merely stopped and lifted his hands harmlessly.  Modulating his voice to its most soothing register, the larger man crooned, “It’s okay, Will.  Everything is all right.”

Will swallowed convulsively, still shaking so hard that he had to shift his feet every few seconds or risk tipping over from the force of every shudder.  He looked around himself, and showed that at least some modicum of coherence existed as he wheezed, “N-N-No, it’s not.”  Words failing him, Will reverted to just shaking his head, body language radiating denial and shock as he wrapped quivering arms around himself.  They were bloodied, too, from split knuckles.

“Yes, it is, Will,” Hannibal gently insisted, and was secretly thrilled when the younger man let him get close enough to touch.  Will was almost too exhausted to shy away, and perhaps that was why he accepted the large, broad hands on his upper arms without protest.  Hannibal cocked his head and inspected the bullet-wound even as Will sucked in a hissing breath of pain, eyes finally releasing tears to join the blood on his cheeks.  Taking the liberty of gripping Will more firmly in his right hand and pushing his bloodied jacket off his shoulder with the other, Hannibal continued in the same calming voice, “You’re alive, and for the moment in no danger.”  The bullet would have to be removed.

Will was beyond arguing at this point, his shaking only growing worse until Hannibal judged that it was possibly a mild seizure, triggered by whatever Will’s brain had just done.  Of course, if Will had been in his right mind – a curious term, for a man whose mind could mirror the minds of others – he no doubt would have realized that he was being handled by one of the most prolific cannibals in recent history.  Hannibal felt very much like he had once as a child, when a falcon had flown into his window.  The creature had not been dead, but while it was stunned, Hannibal had had the singular honor of being able to touch and explore a magnificent creature that would have otherwise never allowed him to get close.

Will was his falcon, at least for now.  Promising to treat his damaged ‘falcon’ with the same amount of reverent respect, Hannibal guided Will’s head in until it rested against his neck, knowing that darkness and warmth was a primitive source of comfort that nearly all creatures shared.  “You did well,” he continued to soothe, even as he felt a choked sob being released against the rim of his collar, a wet and animal sound.  Hannibal let Will gasp and shake, but kept an unbreakable grip on the back of Will’s precious head and around behind his back, to dissuade him from flying away.  “You did what anyone would do when faced with a threat to your life.  The only difference is that you had the capacity to do it better than others.”  Hannibal gave in to the urge to rub his cheek against Will’s hair, and was rewarded by the smaller body curling into him – a reflex, the response of something unaccustomed to bodily comfort.  Hannibal smiled because it was an easy need to manipulate, and he didn’t mind increasing the physical contact, rubbing his left hand up and down Will’s trembling back.  “No one could blame you for protecting yourself with the means at your disposal.  You can rest now, Will.  You deserve to rest.”  Already he could feel Will’s strength ebbing.  It was unsurprising; even without the physical strain of fighting off multiple opponents like this, Hannibal strongly suspected that Will’s brain had gone through acrobatics that even it was unaccustomed to.  Will was all but sagging into him now, and Hannibal took some of his weight with ease.

As Will Graham came apart in his arms like a toy torn open at the seams, Hannibal simply stood and held him patiently, marveling at how all of the humiliation and stagnation of Eigengrau had brought him to this.

Had brought Will Graham _to him_.

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, I changed some of the Hannibal-canon symbolism - while Hannibal is still symbolized as a feathered black stag, I decided to give Will his own animal, a wolf (the color varies). I wanted a way to distinguish them within the animal iconography :) So forgive my detour from canon...


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When Q woke up, it was like every inch of him ached, and he whined high in his throat. In a semiconscious attempt to escape the pain, he pressed closer to the warmth in front of him because that heat seemed to soothe away the worst of it. ... The pleasant lassitude was broken by 007’s voice cutting through it, bringing Q instantly to total wakefulness, “We’ll have to get moving eventually, Q, because as much as I like where we are now, Mallory may need some assistance sooner rather than later.”_
> 
> Or the chapter in which we finally find out what happens when a Quartermaster falls asleep with a high-Pass agent...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my team of betas, who are still valiantly keeping up with the pace I've set for this fic! If it weren't for them, you'd be trying to read your way through my inability to make peace with homophones...

When Q woke up, it was like every inch of him ached, and he whined high in his throat.  In a semiconscious attempt to escape the pain, he pressed closer to the warmth in front of him because that heat seemed to soothe away the worst of it.  Q wanted to be cocooned in that warmth, and when he settled again, still making intermittent pained noises, he very nearly was.  He felt firm shapes close in around him, but nothing triggered warning bells in his brain, so he didn’t awaken any further.  In fact, for an indeterminable stretch of time that could have been seconds or hours, the Quartermaster settled more deeply into slumber, feeling like a lizard perched on a sunny rock – only that summer warmth was tangled all around him, which made it even better.

The pleasant lassitude was broken by 007’s voice cutting through it, bringing Q instantly to total wakefulness, “We’ll have to get moving eventually, Q, because as much as I like where we are now, Mallory may need some assistance sooner rather than later.”

With mortifying clarity, Q realized that he was still in bed with a convicted killer, pressed obscenely close to him from head to toe.  Bond still had his right leg thrown over Q’s hip, but somewhere in the night Q had pushed his own knee more purposefully between Bond’s, hooking his calf around James’s.  It seemed very unlikely that 007 minded in the slightest, especially since Q could feel that he was half-hard – but, then again, so was Q, his body particularly traitorous in the morning despite the terrors of the night before.  Q made an undignified noise of shock and fear, and would have probably fallen right out of bed had not the arm around his middle tightened.  “Steady there, Q.”  At the same time that the Quartermaster registered the warm hand splayed like a star-shaped brand across the middle of his spine, he realized that his own left hand was still miraculously hooked around Bond’s throat.  On reflex, Q squeezed, and was more than a bit surprised when Bond gave a strained sigh against his palm but then stopped moving.  It was a lot like Q had pressed a ‘pause’ button on a video clip, and it did a lot to calm him down.

“Planning to let me go anytime soon?” Bond rumbled after a moment.  He had his head tipped back a bit, Q noticed as he finally lifted his own head out from under the blankets.  The air beyond it was chilly, but 007’s eyes were merely cool.  Blue eyes blinked once, watchful, before 007 went on in the same careful tone, as if Q were some skittish creature, “Or are we going to stay like this all day?”  Something just a bit more wicked glinted in Bond’s gaze even if the rest of his face remained unchanged, and then Q suddenly gasped as the agent’s body rocked just a little against his – a purposeful bit of friction that went a long way, even as Bond added more huskily, “Not that I’m totally opposed to that.”

Brain officially addled, Q called James something unfavorable and pressed harder with his hand – not so much squeezing this time, just pushing, winning him a disgruntled sort of noise as the heel of Q’s hand depressed Bond’s windpipe and forced him to back off a little.  Surprisingly, the man gave in.  It was weird and unexpected to see Bond actually respond to Q’s touch even though it was already pretty clear that the Quartermaster’s grip was in no way life-threatening.   _Q_ was in no way life-threatening, at all, yet 007 rolled back and let Q retreat clumsily off the bed unimpeded.

Q immediately clutched at his ribs, his other hand bracing painfully on the bed.  “Shit,” he gasped shallowly, the pain hitting him like a freight train and stealing the wind from him.  He barely noticed the easy movements of 007 swinging his legs over the other side of the bed, getting up with catlike grace.  “I think this hurts worse now than it did yesterday,” he said with something between shock and petty betrayal in his voice.  It was only at this point that he realized his glasses were gone – which was probably for the best, because he’d fallen asleep with them on, and would have bent them completely out of shape by now.  He just hoped they weren’t lost somewhere in the bedsheets.

Still bent over, breathing shallowly through the throbbing aches in his torso and shoulder, Q didn’t have it in him to be anxious when he heard 007 circled around to him, placing a hand on his good shoulder as if to steady him.  He also, as if reading Q’s thoughts, produced a pair of neatly folded, completely undamaged glasses.  Q slipped them on gratefully but clumsily.  “Muscle aches will do that when you spend hours not moving,” 007 opined neutrally, “and when the painkillers wear off.  I take it you want more?”

“Painkillers?  Yes,” Q immediately replied, almost desperate, “God, yes.”  He was surprised and grateful in equal measure when 007 immediately trotted off, presumably to do just that.  It was only then that Q realized he was still wearing the agent’s jacket, the material still holding all the warmth of the bed – and now the smell of both their bodies, a realization that made Q’s lower stomach muscles tighten a bit.  His morning wood tried to make a reappearance, but all Q had to do was stubbornly recall the events of yesterday, and his body sobered up again.

007 returned, shaking a familiar bottle of pills in his hand.  He tossed it, and somehow Q managed to catch it in his left hand without fumbling.  His right arm didn’t seem to want to work at all, but he realized that that had more to do with his own aversion to pain than any actual paralysis.  007 had to ruin it, of course, by stepping closer and commanding in that entitled way of his, “Let me look at your shoulder.  My sewing skills aren’t half bad, but I’m no nurse.”

“And it’ll be inconvenient for you if you have a half-crippled Quartermaster as an ally?” Q retorted wryly, taking one of the painkillers and consciously fighting the urge to back up for every step forward 007 took.  He managed it, and even held admirably still as tanned, scarred hands took hold of the jacket’s lapels.

“It’ll be inconvenient,” James corrected, pushing the jacket off Q’s shoulders and then pulling aside the neck of Q’s scrub-top, “if you develop gangrene and suddenly I have a _one-armed_ Quartermaster as an ally.  Although, to be fair-”  He shrugged, and must have liked what he saw, because he let Q’s shirt slide back into place.  “-I value you more for your brains than your brawn.”

Bond had taken hold of the jacket again, and Q stood still and allowed 007 to draw it up over his shoulders again.  “You’ll want my hands, both of them,” Q reminded.

Immediately, it was clear that was the wrong thing to say as 007 grinned shamelessly and – still holding the coat lapels to keep Q close – crooned, “Good with your hands, are you, Quartermaster?”

Q slapped him.  It was a pretty good swing, too, rocking Bond’s head to one side and leaving Q’s palm stinging.  More that a bit startled at himself for doing that, Q stared at his hand for a moment even as James worked his jaw, tipped his head consideringly, and decided without rancor, “I deserved that.”

“Damn right you did,” Q muttered, shaky.

Despite his bravado, he was very relieved when James let him go, although when Q made to take off the jacket and give it back – an uncomfortable proposition, not only because of the pervasive cold but because that meant moving his shoulder – James waved him off, “I run hotter than you.  Keep it.”

It was hard to fathom how James worked when a slap to the face actually seemed to mellow him out.

“So, what’s the plan then?” Q asked as he gingerly zipped up the coat, keeping his left arm close to his body.  James had declared that his wound hadn’t gone septic overnight, but it still hurt like hell, and the painkillers hadn’t begun to kick in yet.

“Up to you,” James said equably.  To Q’s surprise, the man turned back to him with an expectant, intelligent look, not unlike the attention of a well-bred hunting dog before an owner.  “You were the one with a plan last night, and while I still don’t know how it’ll work, I’m willing to see what you have in mind.”  When Q continued to look suspicious and befuddled, James raised an eyebrow significantly, and said to Q in a voice that was only slightly patronizing, “I meant it when I said you were the brains and I was the brawn, Q.  I’m not an idiot, but I’m also not the one who had their finger on the heartbeat of Eigengrau’s technological systems until yesterday.”

It was surprisingly pleasant to be appreciated for his brains under these circumstances, and Q had to admit that he hadn’t expected that.  He’d had entirely too many high-Pass agents try to intimidate him physically, and it would have been entirely too easy for 007 to bully Q into compliance.  Feeling a bit more on an even footing, even if he was still aware that 007 could probably snap his neck in a heartbeat, Q sat down on the edge of the bed and began thinking out loud, “I think that I can tap into the intercom system.  There are multiple locations around Eigengrau where one can connect to it, and while C probably took measures to lock everyone else out by himself, I’m pretty sure I can bypass it.”

“No need to be modest.”  James’s smile was small but definite.

“Fine.  I can _definitely_ bypass it,” Q puffed himself up a little bit, and was inexplicably pleased when his boasting did nothing but make the agent smirk a bit wider, amused but also apparently pleased.  “We might need to find the nearest guard station.  All of them are equipped to connect to the island-wide comm-system.”

“I can get you there,” James nodded.

Q narrowed his eyes and dared to say, “I still don’t see what you’re getting out of this.”

“I already got to spend a night with a svelte young boffin,” was the easy answer.

“And you got slapped,” Q pointed out with a roll of eyes.

“It tends to happen,” James shrugged, and Q decided to leave it at that.  There was clearly no getting answers out of 007 if the man didn’t want to explain himself.  Q would just have to accept that he had the man’s help, even if the alliance made literally no sense.

Shaking his head and wrenching his thoughts back to the task at hand, Q went on, “Once I’ve got control of the intercoms, the only problem is that we don’t know where M is.”

“Which is why we’re _using_ the intercom,” James said, as if Q were terminally slow.

“Yes,” Q huffed, pushing his fringe back from his glasses in a mindless gesture, “but that means everyone will hear whatever I say – and by everyone, I mean C and his many cronies.  It’s a bit hard to say, ‘Hello, M, would you mind meeting us in your office so we can make sure you’re all right?’ when the people trying to kill M will also hear those plans.”

“Talk in code then,” James gave a one-shouldered shrug.

“I don’t know any code, Bond,” Q sighed, resigning himself to this plan failing before it was even begun.  A pity, as it had seemed like a fabulous plan last night.  “At least, not any verbal codes that M would know, too.  Both parties have to know the same type of code for it to work, or it’ll be like you speaking to me in Russian.”

A smile has slowly been spreading across 007’s face as Q talked.  It wasn’t quite as worrisome as some of his earlier smiles, but it still made Q tense unconsciously.  “I might be able to help with that,” 007 said after just long enough to make Q nervous.

Pretty sure that James wasn’t referring to Q’s inability to speak Russian, Q hazarded slowly, “Dare I ask?”

Snorting at Q’s reticence, James went ahead and laid his metaphorical cards out on the table, even as he began to move about and collect things from the room around them, “I don’t know any codes or languages Mallory would know that C and his men wouldn’t, but there is a code spoken by some of the high-Pass agents.  Use that code, and at least we’ll have more sets of eyes out hunting for Mallory.”

“Other agents?” Q asked, uncertain.  He was uneasy working with just one high-Pass agent – adding another made him supremely anxious.  “Bond, remember, C has at least one Hound working for him already – 009.”

“But I bet he doesn’t have any more,” 007 said keenly, and Q had to follow his voice because the man had left their room and was now raiding Medical in general, “Not from the old guard at least.”

“Old guard?”

“The smaller numbers - 001, 002, etcetera,” 007 clarified, investigating a set of locked glass drawers and then picking up the nearest blunt-force implement he could find and breaking the glass.  Q wrinkled his nose fastidiously at the destruction of property – and thievery, as James began to scavenge within the cabinet – but then admitted that it was necessary.  James kept talking as he deftly dodged pieces of broken glass, “They rarely put more than one Hound together on a mission, but sometimes it’s necessary.  When they do that, they always put the low numbers – the older agents – together.”

“I thought you lot had a habit of murdering each other when put in close quarters,” Q said suspiciously.  “I’ve heard stories about you and Agent Hart in particular.”

Bond admitted, “It’s a bit counterintuitive, really.”  He found something he seemed to have been looking for in particular, and smiled triumphantly, pausing in his narrative before continuing factually, “The newer agents are like cubs.  Send them out hunting with full-grown monsters like us, and we’ll either run them into the ground or kill them outright.”  James shrugged.  “It’s in our nature.  Ergo, the older agents – the Old Guard – get teamed together even if we honestly can’t stand each other most of the time.”  Glancing over his shoulder, James met Q’s eyes and said unapologetically, “Hart is a pompous old arse.”

“I’m sure he’d say the same about you.”

“Actually, he says that I’m a classless bastard.  But it’s all fair in love and war, as the saying goes – so on missions, we at least respect each other’s skills enough to get the job done,” James explained in that peculiar sort of logic that probably only made perfect sense if you were a Hound.  Q was able to more or less follow, though, especially as 007 boiled it down, “Liking each other and respecting one another as equals are two different things.”

“So the older agents… have developed a coded language?  For working together?” Q hazarded, growing interested.  The painkillers were starting to kick in, and while his arm and left side still throbbed in time with his heartbeat, the razor edge of the pain had dulled.  The Quartermaster, left arm still folded carefully in front of him, followed James around the infirmary.

James nodded, even as he found another packaged syringe, which made Q a bit nervous – especially because James opened it while he talked.  “Trevelyan, Hart, and Reese certainly know it.  It’s hard to tell with Harkness, and I honestly can’t recall the last time Hannibal was paired up with anyone who would have thought to teach him.  Shaw…”  James paused to consider, as he drew up a shot of something.  Q took what he hoped was a subtle step back.  “Reese might have taught her.”

“What about Silva?”

“Not sure.  We’ve never really taken a census of who knows and who doesn’t, but the reason I’m sure Root doesn’t is that she’s new,” James assured.  “She’s only gone on a few missions so far, all solo.”

“Okay,” Q accepted that, rubbing his thumbnail over his lower lip as he looked down at his socked feet – realizing he had left his shoes in the other room - and thought.  “And you’re sure C won’t have any of those agents on his side yet?”

“I don’t doubt that the newer agents are flocking to him like pigeons to stale bread, but we old agents don’t like to make snap decisions.”  Turning to Q now with a full syringe in one hand and the other lifted in a careless gesture, James added airily, “Plus, we’re paranoid as fuck.  Now, stop edging away like a cat at the veterinarian and come here.  This’ll make sure you don’t get an infection.”

“I’m not a cat,” Q grumbled, but had to fight very hard not to scurry away as 007 approached with his usual, stalking stride.

There was something effortlessly intimidating about the man – all the time.  He moved like something hungry, and Q was unfortunate enough to be able to notice.  Boxed up against a receptionist’s counter, Q found himself hunching his good shoulder and unconsciously making a smaller target of himself until 007 sighed gustily and chided, “I’ve got to give this relatively near the wound, Q, and it’s not going to get any easier with you avoiding it like this.”

His ego a bit stung – because James was talking to him very much like he was a child – Q finally found it in himself to hold still out of pure stubbornness.  He still avoided 007’s eyes, though, because he didn’t want Bond to see that he was afraid.  He was always afraid when they were this close together, within easy arm’s reach.  “Your bedside manner is terrible,” Q had enough moxie to gripe.

In response, Bond placed his left hand over the left side of Q’s jaw, skillfully pushing the boffin’s head to one side and baring the left side of his neck in one easy motion.  Q made a noise of surprised pain as the needle immediately bit into the available skin, but Bond caged him in, taking only a half-step more forward so that he was pinning Q in place by sheer proximity.  “And you’re a terrible patient,” James returned, before finishing the job and tossing the needle away negligently.  When Q lifted a hand to touch the point of pain, James kept Q's hand away, instead pulling out a cotton-ball and tape from his trouser-pocket, no doubt filched for this exact purpose.

Q got up the gumption to look at 007, so that he was glaring at the man when the task was finally finished, and blue eyes deigned to look back.  When Bond noticed the quietly murderous expression, his eyebrows briefly winged upwards, proof that Q could be at least a little bit intimidating in small doses.  “Had to be done, Q,” James said in his defense as he backed away, but it sounded suspiciously like he was trying not to chuckle.  “I’m going to do whatever I need to in order to keep you alive, even if you don’t like it.”

The reminder that this was for his own good health sobered Q a little, or at least cooled his ire, and he decided to save the glower for later.  Lord knew he’d find another opportunity to use it, if 007 stayed true to form.  “Fine then,” Q dropped the topic with poor grace, “Let’s just focus on the task at hand then, shall we?”

“By all means.”  Bond’s smile was annoyingly indulgent, but at least he went back to scavenging and let Q be again.

“So, by your estimate, we’ll at least be able to… ask for assistance… from perhaps three, maybe up to eight, high-Pass agents?”

“Yes.”

“James, how do we know these agents aren’t just going to want to kill M on sight?” Q pointed out.  When Bond turned from his foraging to look at Q, the boffin gave another uncomfortable one-shouldered shrug, elaborating candidly, “I’m shocked enough that you’re working with me – what makes you think any of those agents you just named will want to help the man basically in charge of enslaving them here?”

No one had used the word ‘enslaving’ in Eigengrau yet, yet least not within Q’s range of hearing, but that’s what it was, in Q’s mind.  These agents had been stripped of their human rights, locked up, and ordered about without having any say in what they were told to do.  They were collared like animals and could be put down like animals, too, without having any say in that either.  Q, feeling as helpless and uncomfortable with the whole system as he had been from the start, just stood and waiting to see what James would say.

The man’s eyes, surprisingly, were calm and understanding.  In fact, he dipped his head in a little nod, as if respecting Q’s observation, and Q didn’t know what to think about that.  Easing his powerful frame down into an exam-room chair that had been rolled out into the hallway by someone in a hurry, 007 explained with unexpected patience, “Most agents will see the simple logic of it.  We can’t get these collars off if M is dead, and none of the old guard will trust C to keep Mallory alive when killing him is so much easier.  It works in your favor that all high-Pass agents are distrustful, and the experienced ones even more so.”  Bond let that sink in, then went on logically, “Besides that, Mallory is the devil we know.  C is making grand promises, but he’s only been here two days, and some of us haven’t even seen him.  Trust isn’t built that quickly.  I don’t know whether he realizes how little weight his words carry, at least to agents who have been around long enough to become jaded with the system in Eigengrau.”

“So…” Q hazarded, thinking he was catching on, “Despite old hatreds, Mallory is the lesser of two evils?”

“Precisely.  We’re a lot more logical, and a lot less impulsive, than you might think.”

“I’m starting to realize that,” Q allowed, and this time the spark of surprise in Bond’s eyes was very real.  He hadn’t expected the compliment.  Deciding that James had made a good case, and that there was really no better option available, Q sighed, “All right then, I suppose we’re about to start a game of ‘capture the flag,’ with M as the flag.”

“It sounds rather fun when you put it that way,” James observed, tongue-in-cheek.

Q merely snorted and shook his head at the agent’s sporadic antics, and tried to stay on task.  “I might need some tools.  I doubt that there’s an electrical kit around here, but by chance could you find…?”  Q began to get into the larcenous spirit of things, scavenging in Bond’s footsteps and putting together items that could be of use in the near future.

~^~

James was surprised by how resilient the Quartermaster was.

He was surprised by a lot of things about the Quartermaster.

It was obvious that Q was still in pain, the painkillers not relieving it one-hundred-percent – it showed in the way Q held his body, walking so that he moved his left arm and torso as little as possible.  Despite that, however, he insisted on carrying his satchel.  James was aware of the little tablet in it by this point, but now they’d added a whole slew of other items, from bottled water to an array of delicate surgical tools that Q insisted would be useful if he had to physically tap into the intercom’s wiring systems.  The bag wasn’t precisely light anymore, but when James had asked whether Q really wanted to carry it, the boffin had said stoically, “If one of us has to be bogged down, it may as well be the one who’s not armed in the first place.  Honestly, I’d rather _you_ be able to move unimpeded if someone decides they want to pick a fight.”

It was refreshing to be around someone so logic-driven.  Honestly, it was refreshing to be around someone who didn’t treat high-Pass agents like himself as sub-human.  When Bond had nodded to accept Q’s words, the dip of his head had perhaps held a measure of respect in it, before they’d started walking again.

They hadn’t run into any trouble so far – nothing that James couldn’t avoid, anyhow.  It was still early, and no doubt the pervasive power-outage was messing with a lot of people’s internal clocks, convincing them it was still nighttime because it was still dark.  James himself had been disoriented this morning, when he’d awoken suddenly from sleep for some reason.  Having been on countless missions in all manner of timezones, Bond’s internal clock was as flexible as a snake, so when he lifted his head away from Q’s soft, wavy hair, the agent had had to look around for a clock.  It had read 5:05 am, and it took a bit longer to accept that no danger had awoken him – just Q, fingers softly stroking the skin of James’s throat as the boffin fidgeted sleepily.  James could have pushed Q’s hand away at any time during the night, but instead he lay there for long, silent minutes, just counting the beat of his own pulse against a foreign hand.

Ultimately, it wasn’t a bad price to pay.  The hand at James’s throat was far more compassionate than the death he usually wore around his neck, and unlike the collar, Q paid dividends: a little threat in return for the comfort of another body beside him all night long.  Despite the rumors, Bond was nearly as sexually omnivorous as Harkness, and even if he wasn’t, the simple company would have still felt good.

As they neared their destination, James commanded quietly, “Stay behind me, Q,” and was pleasantly surprised when the boffin listened.  Q actually wasn’t unarmed, as he’d claimed earlier, but the scalpel that Bond had found for Q was definitely a lot less useful than the gun Bond still carried – a fact that the boffin was wisely aware of.

Even as he fell into step at Bond’s heels, however, Q pointed out in a voice as quiet as James’s had been, “You know, if the guard station is manned, then you may not want to be the first thing they see.”

“I’m aware of that,” James replied neutrally, but kept moving at the fore of their group.  He had his stolen gun in hand not only because he lacked a holster for it, but because he expected to need it at any moment.

For a moment, Q was silent, but then he said with surprisingly keen insight, “You don’t think there will be anyone there, do you?”

Bond paused, if only to look over his shoulder at his companion.  Q was still afraid of him, that much was clear (Bond would be more surprised if Q _wasn’t_ ), but right now he was meeting 007’s eyes frankly, and with a level of sober understanding that had Bond dipping his head in approval again.  “No, I don’t.  Not alive, anyway,” he answered, and watched as Q’s mouth got pinched at the corners.  He otherwise kept a stiff upper lip about it, though, which was impressive for a young man who had probably never been in a situation even half this dangerous before.

Just in case he was wrong about the guards, 007 slowed down as they approached the guard station.  He could feel Q drawing up behind him, close enough that they brushed up against one another when they stopped at the last bend in the hallway.  Q was smart enough to stay back, however, as 007 leaned cautiously around the corner.  The high-Pass agent stretched an arm back anyway, less to ensure Q’s obedience and more just to feel the reassuring presence of the younger man’s body against his fingertips.

“I don’t see anyone,” James said, but still brought his gun to bear.

He was surprised when Q reached forward to touch his elbow, and when he looked back, the Quartermaster had one eyebrow raised in mild question, and a water-bottle in one hand.  007 wasn’t entirely sure what Q was getting at until Q crouched down at Bond’s knee (still out of the line of sight for anyone possibly waiting down the hall) and sent the plastic bottle rolling down the hall.  The sounds of cheap plastic on linoleum and confined water sloshing immediately filled the silence, and 007 smiled appreciatively at the little decoy.  When there was still no noise or response, both Q and Bond breathed little sighs of relief.  Q even sagged against 007’s leg.  “Hopefully that’s a reliable sign that no one is about,” Q stated decisively, “because I for one am already quite sick of being shot at.”  Q tried to get up again and immediately bit his lip against a groan, body protesting.  Having seen the extensive bruising on Q’s torso from yesterday, 007 could well imagine that something as simple as unbending his torso and standing had to hurt.

Bond leaned down unprompted and gripped Q’s good arm, drawing him upwards.  “Well, as you pointed out, any remaining guards would have been far more likely to shoot at me than you.”

“Yes, but I’m _with_ you,” Q pointed out, steady on his feet again, “and in the dark, if a farmer were to see two dogs near his animals, he’s not likely to wait and find out if one of them is a domestic dog – he’ll shoot them both as wolves, just to be safe.”

“Good point,” James admitted.  On that sobering note, he nonetheless started forward, and Q once again fell in step behind him.  By the time they drew level with the waterbottle, James was fairly certain that he knew what they’d find in the guard station, but he nonetheless moved on ahead as Q paused to pick up the container and tuck it away again.  That meant that James was the first one to actually step through the ajar door, where usually there’d be a mass of guardsmen watching security feeds, preparing to head out and deal with various minor disturbance, or just shooting the breeze.

Instead, he found corpses.  

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *innocent face* Did I promise no more cliffhangers? Surely not. I'm pretty sure that I just promised never-ending chaos with a liberal sprinkling of sexual innuendo...


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bond and Q come upon a guardroom of dead bodies... and things manage to go downhill from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get to learn a bit more 'Hound politics' in this one :) As the fic progresses, they get voices more and more, and they have things to say about their own 'psychotic' nature. (Namely, that they're not really psychotic. Shocker, right?)

“Q,” Bond backed out of the room, hearing the Quartermaster’s steps behind him.  He halted the boffin with a firm hand against his chest, which Q noted with a look of surprise and concern flashing across his expressive face.  Death didn’t bother Bond much at all these days, but he wasn’t so unsympathetic as to forget that normal people tended to have a problem with it.  So when Q met his eyes, full of questions, James said lowly, “We’re not the first people to get here.”

“What…?”

“They’re dead.”  The bluntness was unavoidable, and James watched carefully as Q’s eyes widened and his entire body froze for a moment.  Wary of how Q would react, James therefore felt a rush of relief when that was all Q did – no shouting, yelling, or suddenly getting sick, although Q did look a bit shaky.

Q’s eyes flicked past Bond, although he still didn’t have a good view.  His lips pursed for a moment, but when he spoke, it was in a laudably steady, determined voice, “We still have to go in there.  Is there…”  The only sign that this was really getting to Q was the way he had to pause mid-sentence, close his eyes, and take a deep breath to gather himself before continuing, “Is there any reason we can’t continue as planned?”

‘ _You’re tougher than you look_ ,’ Bond observed within the confines of his head, eyes sweeping Q’s skinny frame from head to toe and marveling at the dichotomy: Q was not physically impressive, but obviously had strength in other ways.  “Probably not.  It’s possible that whoever did the killing also damaged the tech, but I’ll have to check to know.”  Bond paused and added candidly, “I don’t want to leave you alone out here like bait on a hook while I investigate.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll follow you,” Q promised bravely, and James took his word for it.  If Q saw the carnage and decided to back out, James would just have to grab him.

James had never been inside any of Eigengrau’s guard stations before this.  He’d seen them from outside the door, or through bulletproof glass, but for obvious reasons high-Pass agents weren’t allowed to just gallivant in and out of secured areas like that.  If an agent caused trouble, they were simply marched to a cell and left to cool their heels there for awhile.  Now, looking behind the scenes for the first time, Bond found the guard station to be smaller than expected, broken up into numerous rooms like its own miniature household.

A household with bodies on the floor.

Behind him, James heard Q make a little choking noise, and looked back to check on him.  The boffin’s eyes were looking a bit wild around the edges, and he’d stopped next to the first corpse that 007 had stepped over.  James knew that it was not uncommon for normal people to vomit at the sight of dead bodies, and waited with cocked head for Q to do the same.  “It was probably a high-Pass agent who did this,” James said to fill the ugly quiet, “although I can’t say for sure.”

“And we’re asking agents like that for _help_?” Q rasped in evident disbelief and a bit of rising hysteria in his voice.  He was starting to shake, staring fixedly at the corpse, which was lying on the floor with an obviously broken neck.

Bond didn’t answer for a long moment.  It was hard to explain the complicated intricacies of Hound politics – how they all followed a code, but it was a code built upon unique morals and principles, and was flexible for every situation.  An agent who killed guards like this could just as easily be convinced to protect the head of Eigengrau, simply dependent upon the circumstances, and how the question was asked.  Knowing he didn’t have time to convince Q of all that, James took a different route, noting, “ _I’m_ helping you.”

Q’s eyes flashed up to him, and it was hard to tell whether it was anger or pain in his eyes, or just more fear.  James took the opportunity to further his point before his companion could mount an argument, “I see more reasons for helping you than killing you, and while murdering Mallory in his sleep has a certain appeal, I’m not stupid enough to think that it’s a good plan – not after what you’ve told me.”  Q was wavering; he was clearly still distraught, and possibly on the verge of bolting, but he was listening.  It was possible that he’d get over this.  “After the other agents know what I know, they’ll respond the same way.”

“How can you be sure?” Q challenged, gripping the strap of his satchel tightly in both hands, even though that had to make the burns on his left wrist twinge.

“Because the agents we’re going to be talking to are all men and women that I’ve worked with for years,” James answered.

“You’ve tried to kill at least one of them, I’ve heard.”

“I’ve actually tried to kill just about all of them except Alec,” James admitted with just the faintest shadow of guilt – or, at least, as much guilt as a cat felt when it was caught atop the dinner table after being told not to.  “And even Reese has taken a swing at me before.”

“That is not encouraging,” Q groaned, lifting one hand to press the heels against the side of his head – as if against an impending headache, or else as a precursor to covering an ear so he wouldn't have to listen to 007 anymore.  He'd have lifted both hands if not for his injury.  “I can’t believe how dysfunctional you all are.”

“You get used to it,” James shrugged, then finally deemed it safe to approach without sending his companion into a panic.  James had to give Q some credit: despite being totally new at this, the boffin was handling things rather well.  In fact, when James got close enough to grip Q’s upper right arm, all the Quartermaster did was sigh resignedly and stop trying to push his palm through his temple.  “Come on.  The sooner we find the intercom and get that message out, the sooner we can leave this place.”

“I’d rather leave Eigengrau altogether.”

“What a coincidence – so would I,” James rebutted drolly, which instead of earning him a gimlet look like he’d expected, earned him a little chuff of breath that might almost have been a laugh.  It made 007 inordinately proud of himself.

~^~

Q had to ask James to drag the bodies out of the surveillance room.  There had clearly been a fight in there, and while it looked like the technology – including the intercom system – was mostly undamaged, there were two dead guards, a man and a woman, sprawled across the floor.  While he was dealing with all of this pretty well so far, Q knew he couldn’t handle working in a room with two sets of dead eyes staring at him, so with shame burning hot on his cheeks, he asked the high-Pass agent to move them.  Fortunately, for all that 007 could clearly be an unrepentant arse – a disobedient unrepentant arse – he did as Q asked without hesitation or question.  In fact, his expression didn’t even look judgmental as he put his strength to use in dragging stiffening bodies from the room.

Logically, Q knew that the corpses were just outside the door, but it allowed him just enough peace of mind to turn his attention to his task.  Main power was still out, but he and James had found torches and batteries, and Q had the smallest torch on him.  It coincidentally appeared to have the strongest light, and he wedged it in his teeth now, freeing up his hands as he began to work.  James seemed to appreciate working in semi-darkness, a fact which made Q shiver a bit, because it reminded him that most dangerous things preferred to lurk in the dark.

“Can you get it to work?”  James’s voice from the doorway startled Q, and he nearly dropped his tools.

Spitting out the torch, Q reported, “There’s a bit of damage to the microphone here, but I think I can fix it.  I’m not sure yet how C managed to cut off power to basically everything but the intercom and emergency lights, but if need be, I think I can reroute power from the emergency lights.”  Q paused, considering, then added sheepishly, “Hopefully without electrocuting myself.”

“How long do you think that’ll take?”

It was admittedly rather nice when James was in ‘pragmatic mode’ – the more playful side of his personality was both frightening and maddening at the same time – because it was easy to see him as just another person, one who Q could trust to act sensibly if anything happened.  “Half an hour?  Maybe more?  I might get a lucky break, but as the intercom didn’t just magically come on when I pressed the button, I doubt it.”

Nodding in reluctant acceptance, James glanced around him and over his shoulder, looking restless and too big for the room.  Therefore, Q wasn’t surprised when the agent said, “I’ll leave you to it then.  I’m going to poke around a bit, see if I can find anything useful – a holster for this, for one thing.”  He lifted the gun still held naturally in his right hand, and Q tried not to eye it nervously.  ‘Pragmatic James’ was still dangerous.  For now, though, the man was focused on other things, and added, “I’ll be within earshot, though, so holler if you need anything – or if you hear anything.”  His eyes became deadly serious, and Q felt the unblinking weight of Bond’s blue eyes as if it were a hand reaching out to grip him.  “At the first sign that you might not be alone, I want you to shout, do you understand?”

“I understand,” Q replied softly in the face of 007’s ferocity.  It was only after James turned and left that Q realized he was strangely more comforted than he was intimidated.  James truly was serious about keeping him safe, if Q held up his end of the bargain and made sure C didn’t succeed in taking advantage of agents like 007.

There were a few more useful tools tucked in one of the drawers in the surveillance room, but mostly Q was working with subpar utensils in subpar light with limited electricity.  It was maddening enough to make Q growl around the torch that was back in his mouth, and he started to forget about the lingering ache in his shoulder and side – he’d also popped another pain-pill, and it was finally starting to kick in and push Q’s bodily discomforts to the back of his mind.  He began what was basically a triage of the entire system, finding out what had power and what didn’t (only sparking himself twice, not badly, but enough to make him yelp and thus attract James’s attention) and making it so that he had that electrical current where he wanted it.

He was just about to call James over to say that he thought he’d gotten it when a hand fell on his shoulder.  Q nearly jumped out of his skin, but when he twisted he saw that it was just James, looking tense and alert, and whispering, “Quiet, Q.  I want you to stay here, all right?”  The hand on Q’s shoulder was pressing down, and Q realized with a bolt of fear that when Bond said ‘here’ he meant ‘under the desk.’  Q soon found himself being guided to the floor, tucked out of sight with James clicking off Q’s torch but leaving it in his hands.  Bond’s hands were rough and warm on Q’s knuckles as they let the little light go, but James’s eyes were dark and intense even in the shadows as he leaned down and said quietly, “I think someone’s nearby, and I need you to be absolutely silent, all right?  Don’t come out until I tell you to.”

James started to straighten and leave, but Q caught him by the sleeve.  The boffin could sense the danger hidden beneath the glacial layer of calm in Bond’s voice – it was like a leviathan hidden underwater, massive and lethal.  “You have to come back,” Q whispered as firmly as he could, meeting those cobalt-shadowed eyes and making his point clear, “I can’t do this without you, remember?  I don’t know your code, and I need it.  I need _you_.”

Something complicated and surprised ghosted across Bond’s face, and for a moment he didn’t move, his arm lax in Q’s grip.  Then he gently tugged loose, but after a pause, pursed his lips and nodded.  He’d come back.

Hopefully.

‘ _This is what fawns in the grass feel like,_ ’ Q thought detachedly as he hunched in the darkness.  Sitting curled up like this made him remember his bruised stomach-muscles despite the pain medication, and he shifted as quietly as possible to relieve the discomfort.  He’d dragged his satchel down with him, and now he reached a hand into it like a child touching a familiar toy for comfort – or, in Q’s case, multiple toys, as he felt the various tools and gadgets that he and Bond had picked up between Medical and the guard station.  One of those tools was his scalpel, and he was starting to wish that he’d also grabbed one of the guns from the dead guards.

~^~

Bond hadn’t exactly heard something, and he hadn’t exactly seen something, but he nonetheless had the deep and abiding sense that he and Q weren’t alone anymore.  The most worrisome part was, if James knew this but couldn’t pick up any tangible evidence, that meant there was either no intruder and he was paranoid – or else the newcomer was someone of James’s caliber, and therefore hiding themselves almost perfectly.

James had found a shoulder-holster on one of the downed guards, that after stripping it off the guard and readjusting its straps, it was a good fit for him.  It seemed he was destined not to use it, however, as he walked with his gun out before him, loaded and ready in his hands.  In the time it had taken to dart back and hide Q for the time being, James had lost track of the danger he was sensing, and felt blind in a way that had nothing to do with the lighting situation.

James didn’t even see the shape until he was halfway through the door, and a heavy blow connected with his arm, hard enough to dislodge the gun from his grip and nearly dislocated his elbow.

Not a lot of people could hit hard enough to disarm a high-Pass agent like Bond.  All of the Old Guard, as James called them, were trained to the point where they’d possibly keep hold of a weapon even in death, but this attacker had known that.  James immediately twisted to face his opponent, right arm numb to his fingertips, and was only mildly surprised to see Raoul Silva standing just to the side of the door, well hidden.

“You always lead with your gun, James,” the man chided, unrepentant and smiling his too-broad smile, “It makes you very predictable, at least to anyone brave enough to go for your gun.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” James growled, flexing his hand to get the feeling back, the stunned nerves sending painful sparks down his arm.  “Next time I’ll be sure to carry a knife in my other hand, and bayonet the presumptuous bastard.”

Silva’s laughter was full and rich, and he repeated the phrase ‘presumptuous bastard’ to himself as if it were perhaps a compliment he were trying on for size.  Bond and Silva had a tumultuous history – they’d worked together often, sometimes very well, sometimes very badly.  For the most part, James respected Silva as he did every other high-Pass agent; they were all snakes, and could be depended upon to act as such, James included.  Some breeds of snake enjoyed eating their own kind more than others, however, and Bond was also fully aware that Q was more of a sparrow than a snake.  Prime prey.  “What are you doing here, Silva?” James demanded, circling away to give himself some distance.  He could see that Silva was armed, but had chosen to punch James instead of shoot him – which was a good sign.  Silva’s eyes sharpened warningly, however, as James moved towards his own gun.  “Not lying in wait for fellow agents, surely?”

“I was actually just looking around for some fun,” Silva said glibly, pretending ease despite the dangerous tension of his body, “We have three days to ourselves, after all, before the door to freedom opens.”

“Do you really believe that freedom is the offer on the table?” James posed the question, even as he reached his weapon.  Instead of grabbing it, he dropped down to a low crouch, which put him within easy reach of his weapon without touching it yet.  He could tell by the way Silva canted his head consideringly that he could see the silent truce for what it was.

“I don’t really believe that anything is given for free,” Silva admitted, proving that James was right in his assumptions: the older, smarter Hounds were aware that this was an offer too good to be true.  Silva did add, “However, I’m reserving judgment.  I have three days to mull it over, after all, and I’ve always found that a bit of violence clears my head.”  The grin grew a bit broader, and while James could technically understand that point of view, he reminded himself of the young man in the other room – of Q and his morals, which 007 was presently tied to, for better or for worse.

After a thoughtful pause in which James weighed what he knew about Silva and his motives, James said, “I might have a better offer.”  He knew that he immediately had Silva’s attention.  “C – the man on the intercom – has offered to take any willing volunteers off Eigengrau with him, but I don’t think that he’ll free anyone.  I think he wants some powerful pawns.”

Silva’s nod was wary but not disbelieving.  “I had suspected as much myself, regretfully.  However, as with most people who grab tigers by their tails – the tiger often wins, and walks away with a full belly besides.”

“But what if you have to walk away with that collar, too?” James pulled out his trump card, pointing towards Silva’s neck and earning an immediate glower.   _No_ high-Pass agent liked to be reminded of their collars.  Being ordered around they could stand; being used as weapons for the British government they could stand; but being collared like dangerous pets cut them to the quick, and never got easier to bear.  “If C takes off your collar, then you’re right – he’s playing with fire and liable to get burned – but he has to know that.  What are the chances, do you think, that he’ll help everyone escape the island but then conveniently decide that the collars should stay?”

“Your pessimism is depressing, James.”

“Well, I’m hedging my bets,” Bond returned sensibly, still watching Silva very, very closely.  He was recalling Q’s last encounter with 004 – in all frankness, Silva saw most people as beneath his notice, like cockroaches.  Hannibal at least saw other humans as prey-animals, which was a small step up.  Silva, however, had clearly taken a shine to the Quartermaster, and Bond knew for a fact how dangerous that was.  It was common knowledge amongst the Hounds (and even amongst most of the Handlers) that Silva had likewise taken an immediate shine to his Handler, Severine, and even Bond had to admit that that had had disastrous results.  Having a high Psychopass didn’t necessarily make a person evil, in James’s opinion – not always.  Most of the time, it just made a person... extra pragmatic, and more able to justify actions in the absence of emotions or personal connections.  That meant that dark deeds could be done more easily without regret, but it also meant that high-Pass agents like Bond were able to feel badly about some things, after a fashion.  For example, he felt bad for Severine, and pitied her after all that Silva had done to her behind closed doors.  Like Q, she hadn’t been willing to use the collar against her agent, at least not at first, and while James appreciated gestures like that, Silva had taken advantage in every way, until James sincerely believed that Severine was too hurt and afraid to move against Silva.

James quietly wondered where she was now, and if Silva had killed her.

“What other horse are you betting your money on then, hmm?” Silva pressed, curiosity getting the better of him.  “You said you had a better offer.”

Considering Silva’s obvious early interest in Q, James knew that he had two options: either mention Q’s presence as a means to entice Silva in, or deny Q’s presence entirely.  Almost as soon as he posed the two options to himself, he felt himself snatch up the latter option, the urge to protect Q surprisingly strong – and the threat Silva posed surprisingly clear.  “I’ve got one of the keys that unlocks the collars,” James half-lied without blinking, “The only other thing we need to make it work is Mallory.”

“Ahhh, so you’ve found another path to freedom,” Silva said, his voice almost melodious as he marveled at what James was presenting, “But are you sure that you’re not just making a deal with a different devil, James?”

“Perhaps, but considering what you heard of our supposed benefactor on the intercom, what are the chances that he’ll play fairly with us?”  To James, the man had sounded nuttier than Root on a bad day, which was saying something.  

“Touché.  But what are the chances that dear old Mallory will do the same?” Silva volleyed back.

The answer was easy, and it rolled right off James’s tongue like quicksilver, “Mallory is on his own, and on the run – C has allies.  Who do _you_ think will be easier to threaten and manipulate?”

The answer to that was easy, and Silva’s smile was like an oil-spill, dark and smooth and deadly to weaker forms of wildlife.  “I like how you think,” he commended with a small nod, dark, almond-shaped eyes never leaving 007’s face.

“Why, thank you.”

Unfortunately, the compliment came with strings – or, rather, with garroting wire: “…But I think there’s something you’re not telling me.  I think you’re holding something back.”  Silva paused even as James struggled to maintain his mask.  Bond felt that mask crack as Silva went on pointedly in a low purr, “I think, actually, that you’re holding _someone_ back.  You see, after repaying these guards for the pains of my incarceration-”

That answered the question about who had done all of the killing here and why.

“-I hung around, because blood always attracts flies, and who do I see but my dear friend James?” The pleasantness and benevolence in Silva’s tone was slowly swallowed by something darker and more threatening, even as the smile turned fake and manufactured on 004’s face.  “And who do I see with him but the Quartermaster of MI6?”

 _Dammit_.  This was getting more complicated than James wanted it to be.  He was aware of the risks every high-Pass agent of the Old Guard presented – each came with different dangers, different demons – but he’d been hoping that it would be a distant sort of threat.  M’s safety would rely upon the convincing nature of Q’s words, but the safety of Q himself would be much easier to ensure, because he’d never really enter the equation.  Since the message would be relayed in code, James would probably do the speaking, and therefore no one would have any real reason to focus their thoughts on Eigengrau’s Quartermaster – and physically, James and Q would remain aloof as well.  Now, though, all those plans were being shot down, and James’s mind was rapidly trying to formulate ways to deal with this.  He already knew that the easiest way out would be to admit that yes, he did have the Quartermaster, because he already knew that adding Q to the pot would sweeten the deal.

But James felt something possessive thrum in his chest, and he clenched his teeth around that answer.  007 was an amoral bastard in a lot of ways, but he had promised that he’d protect Q as his part of their strange little bargain, even if that meant protecting Q from another high-Pass agent.

“Come now, James, there’s no point in denying it,” Silva started wheedling as 007 thought, “I don’t know how you got your hands on that particularly sweet little morsel, but I saw that you have him.  So tell me: where is the clever boy?”

“Busy,” James stalled.

“Ah, nearby then,” Silva took out of that, much to 007’s frustration.  He wasn’t wrong, and James was hoping desperately that Q was still following orders and staying put, because now would be the worst time for him to wander out of hiding.  “Really, James, this reticence of yours is quite unbecoming.  Weren’t you ever taught to share as a child?”

“I was an only child.”

“No wonder you’re missing the finer points of etiquette, then,” Silva sighed regretfully, “Why don’t you call him out?  I assume that he’s a bigger part of this than you’re letting on – unless you’ve kept hold of him purely as a fucktoy?”

The memory of last night drifted pleasantly across James’s mind's-eye, but it hadn’t included anything close to sex.  The discussion of ‘sharing’ so close to the insinuation of fucking Q was also no coincidence, and James realized that he was holding more than just Q’s life in his hands.  A part of 007 recognized that detachedly, and saw a bargaining chip he hadn’t known that he’d had – another part of James was human enough to recognize that selling Q to win Silva’s favor was morally very wrong.

James stood slowly, picking up his gun as he straightened.  004 still had his weapon in hand, and it put them on exactly equal footing by the time 007 was fully upright again: both standing, guns in their right hands, held seemingly at ease by their sides.  “Don’t try to take more than I’m offering, Silva,” James said, voice smooth and polite like a sheath hiding a knife.

Silva’s smile was a knife of a more bared kind.  “Aren’t all deals open to negotiation?”

“To a certain point,” James admitted, then continued implacably, “You’ve gone beyond that point.”

“You’re protecting him,” Silva realized with something like bafflement, angling his head sharply as if James might make more sense from a better perspective.  When apparently that didn’t change things, he suddenly burst into laughter, loud and rolling like a rampant storm.  “Oh my, this is something I never anticipated!  The great and terrible 007-”  Silva began circling as he spoke, a shark scenting blood, James’s blood.  007 stepped to the other side to keep pace.  “-Infamous for killing the Handlers he didn’t like and fucking those he did – and sometimes doing both.”  Silva’s eyes glinted knowingly as they began to circle one another like binary stars.  “Now, here you are, playing the bodyguard for a mere wisp of a thing.”

“If he’s just a mere wisp of a thing, why are you so interested?”

“Because,” Silva growled past a smile, sounding primordial and ravenous for a moment, “he’s like my Severine: something that I can mold or break as I choose.  I assume that’s why you like him, too.  Tell me, James, does bending him in half beneath you make up for all of those lonely nights when you lay in bed, holding that collar about your throat and drowning in the impotent realization that it could kill you in seconds, and you’d never even be able to fight back?”

Fury roared up to fill the many cold rooms of 007’s mind.  The fear that Silva described was all too real – because all Hounds felt it, but never spoke of it out of respect for one another.  Now Silva was dragging it kicking and screaming into the room without a care in the world, and James finally let his gentlemanly mask fall completely away.  He glared at Silva with all the merciless, killing cold of a glacier, and raised his weapon in his hands.

Silva, with every indication that he’d been hoping for this, did the same.  He mused, “It’s going to be a treat to kill you, 007.  You see, I still haven’t forgiven you for interrupting my last talk with our Quartermaster, and I think that this is the perfect opportunity for me to have another chat with him.  Alone, this time.”

“Good luck with that,” James said, aiming and firing before Silva got a chance, not an ounce of hesitance in his hands.  The other man, having apparently expected more inane banter, startled and dodged.  He just barely avoided the bullet, but James saw blood on the other man’s ear even as he darted behind a vertical filing cabinet for cover.

Silva’s expression had devolved into one of bestial anger, like a demon peeling back its human skin.  “I’ll fuck him over your corpse!” he spat furiously.

“It would seem that the niceties are at an end then, yes?” James observed calmly, quietly firing off another round into the cabinet to test just how easily the metal gave way beneath a bullet.  This wasn’t how he’d hoped for this to end, but he’d deal with it, the same way that he’d dealt with having a death-sentence around his neck for so long.  As he found a desk to crouch behind, he could keenly feel the metal loop against his throat, and all he could think was that he much preferred Q’s hand – because if nothing else, he was very sure that Q’s hand had no intentions whatsoever of killing him.  

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cocks head detachedly at the ending* Oh, look. A cliffhanger. 
> 
> Come back next week for: the chapter in which everyone wishes 'the great and terrible 007' had been able to just 'bayonet the presumptuous bastard'!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion: Bond vs Silva. 
> 
> In which Q is a brave little toaster and 007 is scary as fuck - but that's not to say Q can't be a little bit scary, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the late posting! I was buried in grading student papers...
> 
> There's definitely gore in this chapter, so be warned - also, Silva's a sick bastard, so while there is NO non-con planned for this fic, there are threats made.

Silva had been a Hound for longer than Bond had, and was a merciless killer once he got going – the fact that 007 had had the honor of drawing first blood was more attributable to good fortune than anything else, and the fact that Silva always had loved the sound of his own voice.  Now that the gunfight had started in earnest, however, the odds were more disturbingly even, and James grit his teeth and tried to ignore the very high odds of getting shot.  Conserving bullets, he stayed hidden where he was, only angling out of his position and getting off shots to keep Silva at bay.  The filing cabinet, sadly, was a lot tougher than it looked, but if he could keep 004 pinned behind it, then he’d have time to think of a better plan.

“Do you think your boy will come running to save you, James?” Silva catcalled from across the room, tone raucous and designed to draw blood – to draw Bond out.

Bond would not be baited.  He checked his clip quickly, sighing because even with the extra ammo in his pockets, there simply weren’t enough bullets for a problem like Raoul Silva.  “I doubt it,” he growled back, slamming the clip back home, “I heard you coming and told him to hide, and that if he came running out to be a hero, I’d shoot him myself.”  The last part was a lie, but James was talking loudly enough that he bloody hoped Q heard him.

Laughter filled the room, and 007 took a moment to truly consider how much he hated Silva’s laugh.  He was starting to wonder if he’d always disliked the man, or if his opinion had changed since allying with Q.  “You’re so charming, James.  No wonder he likes you.”

“Oh, I rather doubt he likes me.”  Only a fraction of 007’s attention was really on the conversation.  He twisted just enough so that he could shoot past the desk without making an easy target of himself.  He tried shooting past the cabinet, and was rewarded by Silva shouting in surprise at the ricochet.  James grinned.  “In fact, I think he’d be rather pleased if you crippled me a bit – he’d probably sleep better at night.”

Predictably, Silva took that opportunity to return lecherously, “Are you saying that you keep our dear Quartermaster up at night?”  Chances were high that the ricocheted bullet hadn’t done any damage, but it had apparently made Silva a bit more reckless, because he came out of hiding even as he spoke – unfortunately, the hail of bullets he sprayed James’s way kept 007 from taking advantage of that.  Hunching his shoulders up and flinching as wood splintered entirely too close to him, James growled at Silva’s constant insistence on innuendo.  Usually, 007 wouldn’t have minded… in fact, usually he’d be nearly as bad… but he was well aware that Q was probably within hearing range, and would be decidedly harder to work with if Silva’s insinuations made Q constantly afraid of James’s intentions towards him.

James wasn’t exactly on speaking terms with most morals, but he was a great fan of quid pro quo – and so far, Q had been a decent sort of fellow, so 007 figured that he could be a decent sort of fellow back.

Counting off bullets, James held his breath and sprang the moment he judged Silva would have to reload.  He heard Silva swearing reflexively in Portuguese, and nearly put a bullet through him as 004 pivoted out of the way just as James rounded his latest cover.  This time, it had been a pillar, and while Silva hadn’t had time to reload, it was James who was caught off-guard when the other Hound continued around the concrete barrier and appeared from the other side with a combat knife in hand.  It was Eigengrau-issued, probably from one of the guards, and Silva nearly put it in James’s back before 007 could turn.  Whoever coined the phrase ‘Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight’ had clearly never fought with a Hound, as Silva closed the distance between them and suddenly made ranged weapons useless.  Bond, too busy trying to avoid a literal backstabbing, was unable to bring his gun to bear by the time Silva was on him.  The two crashed into a desk and then onto the floor, James underneath with Silva’s snarling smile hanging above him like a manic crescent moon.  

Bond took one hand off his gun to catch Silva’s descending wrist, stopping the heavy blade from slamming home into his eye.  At the same time, Silva caught James’s gun-hand, pressing it to the floor so that 007’s last-minute shot went wild and lodged itself in the very desk he’d been hiding behind.  The poor piece of furniture was already riddled with gouges.  “So,” Silva grunted, weathering James’s attempts to heave him off, “it seems we’ve reached something of an impasse.  Are you sure that you don’t want to negotiate?”

“Make up your mind, Silva,” James grunted, unable to buck Silva off while he was simultaneously trying to keep the knife at bay, “Do you want to make deals with me, or get payback for me blacking your eye outside of Q-branch?”

Silva’s smile hadn’t wavered, but the vein standing out on his forehead and the tendons standing out on his neck and arms revealed how much he had to fight to maintain the stalemate.  Silva was a bit heavier than James, but that didn’t mean 007 was easy prey, and it was clearly taking all of Silva’s effort to contain him.  “In a perfect world, I’d get both.”

“Go fuck yourself,” James gritted back uncharitably, then bared his teeth and strained as Silva leaned a bit more of his body weight into his knife-hand.

“You know, Hannibal might have the right of it,” Silva managed to get out, voice a bit breathy now with effort.  In fact, Silva grunted under his breath as he managed to gain another inch, the knife-blade swaying and actually scratching James’s throat despite the blue-eyed man’s best efforts.  “Killing rude people sounds like a delightful plan, and you’re clearly not learning manners quickly.”

Feeling the single hot bead of blood rolling off his Adam’s apple, James used a surge of strength to push back, and won himself a bit of metaphorical breathing room.  His gun-hand was still pinned to the floor, but if he could just wriggle his hips a bit, maybe he could knee Silva hard enough to get him off… hopefully without getting his throat split open in the process.  “Careful when you go around mimicking Hannibal,” James ground out absently, most of his focus on the fight but his mouth still working on autopilot, “He eats people.”

“Insanity looks better on some than others,” Silva admitted as if it were a crying shame that Hannibal couldn’t just be a nice crazy person like Silva was.

It was at that point that James looked away from the too-close knife to snarl something uncharitable up at Silva’s face, and very nearly gave the game away with his expression.  It took a massive amount of effort to keep his face straight as he saw the slim figure looming up behind Silva, and likewise it wasn’t easy to suddenly jerk Silva’s knife-hand to the left while James twisted his body the other way – and quickly, too, because almost as soon as James saw him, Q attacked, landing on Silva’s back and driving something towards the larger man’s neck.

The tip of Silva’s knife slammed into the floor so hard it chipped the flooring, and Silva’s weight was suddenly like a mountain falling down because Q had added his own bulk to the situation.  True, Q wasn’t even in 007 and 004’s weight class, but Silva hadn’t been expecting the sudden and spirited attack from behind.  In fact, both Silva and Bond were so surprised that it took a moment for either of them to realize that Q – while not particularly intimidating or trained in fighting like they were – _was_ armed.  Silva, after falling forward, reared back with a roar that turned to choking even as blood spurted from the side of his neck, where Q had buried the little surgical scalpel that 007 had scrounged up for him.

Even with the scalpel sticking out of his neck like a silver twig, Silva was strong, and Q was literally thrown as 004 reached around and grabbed him by the coat-collar and dragged him away.  The boffin had clearly tried to cling onto Silva, but his strength didn’t count for much when pitted against Silva’s sudden fit of pain and rage, and James watched as Q tumbled painfully and then skidded across the floor, fetching up against the bullet-riddled metal cabinet.  James immediately turned his attention back to the biggest problem, however, and did what he did best: he went for the throat.

Silva had dropped his knife in favor of clamping a hand around the scalpel, holding it in place and trying to trap his own blood within his skin.  Surgical scalpels didn’t have anything by way of hilts, however, meaning Silva had little or no traction when James’s hand came upwards in an open-handed slap that drove the blade in deeper like a hammer would a nail.

“You bastard,” Silva snarled, but his words were wet-sounding now, redness flecking his lips and nostrils as he breathed.  Panic was starting to make his eyes wild, burning out his anger, and he tried to retreat only to realize that 007 was still very armed – and backing away meant releasing his hold on James’s gun-hand.  James was like a wolf at the door, waiting with bared teeth, for exactly that to happen.  When Silva went for his own knife, however – which necessitated taking his hand off his own neck – 007 was just as quick to taking advantage of that, too, immediately snaking his left hand up again.

Silva had no choice but to catch James’s left wrist, slamming it down on the floor as he had the right.  That left both men panting and still again, Silva leaning over James, James essentially helpless with his hands pinned, but a self-assured smile playing frostily across his face.  Silva’s blood was dripping all over him, proof that this wasn’t a stalemate.  This was the clock ticking away as 004 bled out.

“You’re going to start feeling weak, and then I’m going to get loose,” James promised, low and calm, blue eyes as wicked as cold flames.  With nothing else but Silva’s labored breathing to break the quiet, it was eerie and terrifying to hear 007 keep speaking in that same steady, damning tone, “And you’ll thank any god you pray to when that happens, because at least that way you’ll have a chance of dying quickly.”  Some of Silva’s blood fell on James’s cheek, making the blue-eyed man grimace as it dripped down into his ear, but he still finished contemptuously, “Right now your only other option is bleeding out slowly like a stuck pig, because there’s no one in this whole damn building who would want to help you.”  James struggled a little, testing Silva’s hold, finding that it was weaker but not yet breakable.  “You've already alienated the most moral person in this room-”  Q, whom James didn’t have time to spare a glance for, but who must have heard at least _something_ of Silva’s threats to goad him into intervening.  “-And you’ve given me every reason to kill you before you could take three steps out of this room.  You’re screwed, Silva.”

The man looked animal, hair in a pale disarray as he leaned over James and snarled down at him.  There was definite fear in his eyes, the look of a trapped animal, even as he glanced about the room for inspiration.  His knife was within reach, of course, but to grab it would mean letting go of one of 007’s hands, and that had already proven disastrous.

Then James rolled his head to the right, finding Q’s wild-eyed gaze where the boffin was now curled up against the filing cabinet – the Quartermaster didn’t look much the worse for wear, but was clearly overwhelmed.  James met his eyes unblinkingly, then said as if it were natural, “You could kill him, Q.”  With both Hounds busy with each other, and dead guards everywhere, a gun would be easy to acquire.  Bond, after a detached and thoughtful pause, added imperturbably, “You could kill me, too.”

Q just stared back at him in horror, but to James’s surprise, answered after only a second or two.  His voice was wrecked and shaky, but James understood it easily as Q gasped out quietly, “No, that’s your job.”

The agent’s smile was slow and fierce, and with that, he snapped his focus back up to Silva.

And hooked his legs around the other agent’s waist and flipped them.  The second James was on top, he wrested one arm free and grabbed the scalpel in Silva’s throat to yank it out in one bloody, slicing arc.  The spurts of red became a tide, and Silva choked and heaved and slowly went still.  It took only moments.

James got up smoothly.  Redness flecked his coated and coated his left hand, but his pullover was doing a decent job of hiding the rest of the mess.  He took the knife Silva had nearly killed him with and slipped it through his belt – he’d find a proper sheath later.  His gun went into the newly procured shoulder-holster, and he looked down briefly at the bloody stain on the knees of his trousers.  Of course, he added to the blood when he wiped off his hand.  That done, he turned to find Q.

The Quartermaster was still huddled in the same place, but with possibly even more horror in his hazel eyes.  They were fixed on James in obvious fear as the agent approached him, all their whites showing from behind Q’s glasses.  Despite that, the Quartermaster held still admirably well as the high-Pass agent closed the distance between them – it wasn’t until James was only a stride away that Q’s resolve broke, and he tried to make a dash for freedom.  Fortunately for 007 but unfortunately for Q, the boffin’s earlier injuries prevented him from making an easy escape.  Instead of getting up smoothly to his feet and running for the door, Q’s bruised muscles cramped and he ended up sinking back into a sitting position with a gasp and a hand clutched to his ribs.  It was possible, upon reflection, that he might have had a cracked bone or two there, worsened by the tumble he’d just taken at Silva’s hands.

“Just take it easy, Q,” Bond sighed laboriously, looking upwards for a moment as if for strength or patience before he closed the final distance to Q and leaned down to get a grip on the smaller man’s upper arms.  Predictably, despite James’s jaded command, Q struggled even as the high-Pass agent hauled him to his feet.

Once Q was vertical, grimacing in pain and also leaning on the cabinet for balance, however, the Quartermaster gave 007 a hard hit in the chest.  He looked like he would have slapped him again, but Bond’s chest was a closer target, at least so long as James had hold of him.  “You _absolute_ arsehole!” Q seethed at him, and the anger was something of a surprise.  A good one, really, as 007 was more prepared to deal with an angry Q than a scared-shitless one.  Angry people didn’t turn catatonic and useless.  Q’s eyes opened to fix on Bond’s face with fury bright and hot in their hazel depths, and he actually leaned forward against James’s hands to shout, “That man was one of the people you were going to have me _send after M_!”

Ah, so that’s what Q was so hyped up about.  Sympathizing wasn’t something that anyone with a high Psychopass did naturally – it took effort, and now James looked away briefly, focusing and cataloguing Q’s views on the matter.  It took a few seconds, but afterwards he could see why this had the Quartermaster bothered.  He also had a counter for it, one that had been in his own thoughts all along, but apparently hadn’t occurred quite so naturally to the low-Pass Quartermaster.  “Q,” James gave him a very light shake, aware of the younger man’s injuries, “ _Everyone_ – good and bad – is already after M.  All we can do is give them all of the information and hope they see sense.”  Bond looked back over his shoulder, at Silva’s body, aware that his own expression was turning into a frigid glower.  “Silva didn’t.”

Q had stopped struggling, although his fisted hands were still resting against 007’s chest.  They’d probably move just as soon as they realized how much blood had soaked into the ink-black fabric, and was now starting to leach onto the outer edges of Q’s elegant hands.  Surprisingly, Q’s eyes had followed James’s, and instead of staring at the fresh corpse with a look of burgeoning horror, the Quartermaster’s eyes were growing fierce and hard with something between determination and righteous anger.  It was a good look, and James found himself watching Q’s face with increased interest even as he held onto him.

“In that case,” Q said slowly, but in an implacable tone that 007 hadn’t heard before, “I don’t need to speak in code.”  Those bespectacled eyes flashed back to meet James’s blue eyes, daring him to argue.

And 007, always happy to oblige, did.  “Everyone will know what you’re saying, Q – and a lot of them will know who is saying it, too.  I was going to do the talking to avoid that.”

“I wouldn’t even know what you _said_ if you did that,” Q hissed, and the distrust flared up behind his eyes, hurt and ugly.  James winced just a bit, but figured he deserved that.  Unexpectedly, though, Q quieted and returned to a more impersonal kind of stubbornness, “And I don’t care who hears me.  The more people the better, actually, and C can just go choke on that.  Hopefully if I cast a wide enough net, some sensible people will get caught in it.”

James raised one eyebrow, knowing that he was wading into trouble, but also knowing that he’d been standing in it for awhile now.  He asked tonelessly, “And I take it I’m not included in that list?”

“You’re the one who didn’t seem worried about 004 until he started shooting at you,” Q retorted frigidly by way of answering, then jerked away.  Bond let him go.  Q, with a slight limp now – perhaps from his abrupt tumble off Silva’s shoulders – but with a ramrod straight spine, stalked back out of the room.  James, after a beat, followed him silently back to the comms room, both wary and curious as to what the wrathful Quartermaster would do next.  All James had seen of Q had indicated that the young man followed a strong moral compass, but at the same time, 007 had never seen the boffin quite this angry before.

Q sat down in front of a microphone, and apparently he’d gotten it to work, because he flicked it on without preamble, and there was a slight whine of feedback that said it was working.  While Q purposefully didn’t look back at him, 007 figured that the dark-haired young man was aware of the agent now leaning undemandingly in the doorway.  Said agent did nothing to interfere as Q cleared his throat, and then his voice was ringing throughout all of Eigengrau.

~^~

Mallory was just stopping to catch his breath, checking how many bullets he had left, when a brief squeal and then a voice through the intercom had him jerking his head up.  At first, he opened his mouth to curse, expecting C’s damnably chipper voice, but the words died of shock in his throat as he recognized his Quartermaster’s prim tones instead: “ _If I could have everyone’s attention, please, or at least the attention of all the high-Pass agents_.”

Mallory wasn’t included in that list, but he was definitely listening.  “What the hell are you doing, Q?” he asked under his breath.

~^~

Deep in the heart of Eigengrau, where the building was thankfully better at holding onto warmth, Harry Hart was pondering the puzzle that was Eggsy Unwin.  He was still a bit shocked and impressed by how stubbornly Eggsy refused to snitch on people, but after learning that Eggsy’s silence had been bought with threats to his mother and baby sister, the story had unfolded grudgingly, like a dam slowly cracking and splitting open.  Harry had met Eggsy’s mother, after her husband – Eggsy’s father – had died.  Harry hadn’t been able to give her much comfort then, or to tell her exactly what her husband had done to get himself killed, but he’d shown his gratitude by giving her his thanks, a pendant, and a promise of a favor to whoever wore that pendant with its little inscription on the back: ‘Oxfords Not Brogues.’

Now, after a long night of slowly prying Eggsy’s history into the open – a father he couldn’t remember, a mother who was now a full-blown alcoholic, her boyfriend who was abusive, and a baby sister who would probably have died of neglect ages ago had it not been for Eggsy – Harry and Eggsy sat together against the bathroom wall.  Eggsy was restrained again, because Harry couldn’t trust him not to do something brash to keep his sister safe.  After all, C had promised to kill her if Eggsy didn’t secure them a helicopter to leave Eigengrau.  Even with that metaphorical sword of Damocles hanging over his head, however, the emotional onslaught of telling his story to someone had left Eggsy sapped, and now he was out like a light, unashamedly leaning his full body-weight on Harry’s shoulder.  The older man didn’t even mind.  He kept looking down at the pendant lying clearly visible on the boy’s chest, that promise of a favor clinging to it like an aura only Harry could see.

Harry wasn’t accustomed to having emotions inform his decisions.  He wasn’t much used to emotions at all, besides the occasional annoyance at a mission going poorly, or someone around him being an idiot.  Now, though, he looked at the line of worry that was still between Eggsy’s brows even in sleep, and felt a whole nest of emotions coiled in his chest.

Both men snapped to full alertness as the intercom suddenly came on, the first words cutting through even Eggsy’s emotionally exhausted sleep.

“… _I’m sure that you all heard the announcement late yesterday evening, regarding the promise of freedom for all the agents of Eigengrau – that was from our very own Director-General, by the way.  Your would-be benefactor, C, is actually part of the corporate power behind this facility, in case anyone was interested to know.  And so am I, I will admit.  Before you jump on board with that stunning proposal, however, let me give you a bit of insider information._ ”

~^~

“Q’s lost his mind,” H breathed in quiet horror, for the first time dropping the professional ‘Mr.’ before the Quartermaster’s title.  He was huddled in one of the living quarters – not his own, which had been overrun by enemy operatives and rogue Hounds the night before, but one of the high-Pass living quarters.  John Reese’s, to be exact.

008 stood watchfully at the door like a guard-dog, brows beetling as the speaker on the intercom continued: “ _Firstly – your collars aren’t broken.  The signal is just jammed, and you should be aware that they’ll no doubt start working again the second you’re off the island.  I’m sure that C was going to tell you that eventually_.”

Reese had already known all of that – H had told him, just as H told him everything.  That was why Agent 008 hadn’t the slightest inclination of leaving Harold and accepting C’s proposal, even as danger continued to breathe down both their necks.  Now, though, it seemed like this knowledge was being spread far and wide, so even agents without their own personal Q-brancher were having their eyes opened.

~^~

Hannibal had taken Will to the kitchens, because it was closer than any of the medical facilities, but had many of the same tools: antiseptic solutions, blades, even means of keeping a person warm.  Will Graham was the most fascinating thing that Hannibal had seen in years, possibly in all of his life, but was fading fast as shock took over.  Therefore, Hannibal only gave a fraction of his attention to the intercom that continued whining above his head.

“… _If C kills M, of course, then it’ll be a moot point, as M is presently the only one with the codes necessary to remove your collars entirely.  So if he’s been murdered already, then you’re all bloody screwed.  Considering the fact that C has encouraged you all to go on a three-day killing spree, I can only surmise that he’s hoping you do just that.  After all, it’s hardly his fault if he can’t set you free because one of you just happened to cut off the head of Eigengrau.  So, with that in mind, I’d recommend considering a new proposal: keep M alive_.”

At this point, Hannibal really only cared about keeping two people alive: himself and the brilliant mind on the table before him.

~^~

Ianto felt like he was in a lions’ den – and the number of lions kept increasing.  Harkness hadn’t let go of his arm yet, and now he was surrounded by over a dozen men and women, all individuals who would gladly gut him if they realized he was actually the right-hand-man to M himself.  They’d all joined up under the quiet but stern command of a man called Sebastian Moran, whose grey eyes had a crystalline coldness to them that reminded Ianto of the glass eyes on taxidermied animals.  If there was humanity behind that gaze, he couldn’t see it.  Harkness wasn’t helping either.  His grip may as well have been made of iron, and every time Ianto tried to make a break for it, it tightened to bruising proportions – and all the while the agent would maintain a slantwise smile.  It looked as easy as breathing for him, to banter back and forth at the expense of the ‘accountant’ they’d caught.  In fact, it was without flinching that Harkness had explained away his new ‘pet’ to Moran when they’d all met up.  Moran hadn’t looked impressed, but hadn’t argued, and now Ianto was being let go for the first time all night.  They were in a rec-room, where water as well as spare clothes were readily available, and everyone was liberally raiding the place while Harkness pushed Ianto down to sit in a corner by a line of lockers.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Harkness said, and there was something in his eyes – just for a moment – that made Ianto think back to the man who’d pressed his shoulders gently to the bed and leaned their foreheads together, mixing lust and a simple, sweet affection.

Then it was gone, as someone shouted something lewd Harkness’s way, and 001 turned to grin and return the joke in kind.    

All of the joking ground to a halt, however, as the intercom started up.  Even Ianto forgot his fears for a moment as he listened, stunned, as the Quartermaster of Eigengrau began one of the boldest monologues that Ianto had ever heard.

“… _And before one of you decide to hunt Mallory down and force him to let you free, I’d like to remind you that removing a collar actually takes three things – M, a special electronic key, and a working computer.  C, of course, has crashed all the computers.  It’s like he doesn’t want you un-collared at all, isn’t it?  So even if you have M, and he has a key on him, you’re still missing the last component._ ”

Moran was nearby, looking like a lean wolf after a long winter that had just gotten longer.  Ianto was looking at his growing frown, and therefore was watching the man’s mouth move as he succinctly muttered, “Shit.”

Ianto had a feeling that the room was about to get ugly, and he wrapped his arms around his knees and looked up just in time to see Harkness looking back at him, clear worry in his sea-blue eyes.

~^~

John Watson hissed as one of the other guards wrapped up his knee.  They’d been going out in turns to bring in ‘refugees,’ people without combat training who were now stuck like mice in the snake-pit of Eigengrau.  Medical supplies were in great demand, but John had been a doctor during his military years, and was used to making do.  He was worried that his knee would take more than first-aid, though.  That last run to get people had gotten ugly, but the sudden voice over the intercom had been a perfect distraction to retreat under.

They were all back in Holding, where the doors had actual, non-electronic locks, and John glanced up to see Sherlock nearly frantic behind the door of his cell.  “John?  John!” he called.  He looked like nothing so much as a big lanky otter sliding back and forth in a too-small cage.  “John, who was the man speaking on the intercom system just now?”

Before John could open his mouth and reply, the speaking continued, grim and implacable: “… _I, however, have one of those keys… and I’m the Quartermaster.  I know these systems inside and out, and out of everyone in this godforsaken place, I’m your best chance of getting a computer working, outside of the benevolent C, of course_.”

“That’s Eigengrau’s new Quartermaster,” John shouted down to Sherlock, just in case that wasn’t completely self-evident by now.  Deciding that he was as patched up as he was going to get, John heaved himself to his feet and limped a few steps in Sherlock’s direction, adding as lightly as he could past a pained grimace, “He’s only been here a week or so, but he already sounds as full of himself as you.”

“That’s because he’s my brother,” Sherlock snapped back, and that was like a dash of cold water.  Even if the revelation hadn’t been utterly unexpected, Sherlock’s tone was like chipped ice, edged and cold and no-nonsense.  In the whole time that Sherlock had been here, John hadn’t seen the man get violent – petty, yes, and angry in a frustrated sort of way, but now there was real fury in the gesture as the lanky man slammed a fist against the bars and snarled, “What the _fuck_ does he think he’s doing?”

John could only stand and stare.  He’d read Sherlock’s file and known that he wasn’t an only child, but he’d never seen pictures – to be fair, he’d also not seen the new Quartermaster.  It was almost too much to believe that Sherlock had a brother who was not only in a leadership position in Eigengrau, but right now speaking fearlessly to the people who were turning Eigengrau upside-down.  This was also the most furious expletive he’d ever heard Sherlock utter.

Finally, John just shrugged dazedly and said, “It sounds like he’s laying down the law,” just as the Quartermaster brought his argument to a resounding close.

~^~

Q hadn’t let his voice waver through the entire speech, even though the adrenalin in his system was starting to make his body shake.  But he had something to say, dammit, and he was going to say it with all he was worth, and make people _listen_.  Leaning close to the microphone and speaking in clear, concise tones, he went on, “…So, I want you to choose, but choose carefully – or don’t choose.  Just think.  If you happen to find Gareth Mallory, and you don’t know who to trust, then serve your own self-interest.  With M dead, you’re the one who suffers.  You don’t have to like him; you just have to accept that he’s a valuable asset if you keep him in one piece.  And true, maybe C will want him alive, too, even if he hasn’t said anything to that effect.  But if at this point you still want to try your luck with the Director-General, remember this…”  Q paused, gathered his courage, and finished like an axe falling, “I can free you just as much as he can… but I can also track you even if you lose those damn collars, because Smartblood is a lot harder to disable.  I should know.  I made it.  And I’d be deeply disappointed if any of you decide to take out your frustration on Gareth Mallory because of all this.”  And with that, Q hit the button to turn off the intercom again, sitting back and inhaling for what felt like the first time since he’d watched 007 calmly and cleanly slice open the entire side of Raoul Silva’s neck.

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *happy sighs* Ahhhhh, but now I love ever-shifting power-dynamics :3 My favorite part in this chapter is actually Bond giving Q the choice of who dies - and Q giving that power back to him. 
> 
> Of course, now Q's pretty much threatened the freedom of every Hound in Eigengrau. Oops.   
>  Join us next week when: Q remembers that one of those Hounds is standing right behind him...


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q has just threatened every high-Pass agent in Eigengrau, and now he's got to face the one agent who has the power to threaten him back.
> 
> Also: Isn't it time to check back in on Eggsy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the day-late posting :P I know I promised Monday chapters, but Mondays have gotten a bit nuts. But hey, it's still a weekly posting, right? And you get a taste of 007 at his most mercilessly lethal...

007 was still behind Q; the Quartermaster knew it like a ship captain knew that a storm was brewing beyond the lip of the horizon.  Q didn’t turn around, but he felt the hairs on his nape stand on end just a few seconds before the older man spoke from the doorway, “Now they’re just going to want to take out their frustration on _you_ , Q.”  Bond’s voice was steady and low, and utterly unreadable except perhaps for a low burr of temper just barely creeping into the words.

It made Q’s hands shake a bit more, and he hid it by clasping them together on his lap.  His exhale was likewise a bit shaky, and he worried that his voice wasn’t as iron-strong as it had been over the intercom as he tried to calmly reply, “And you?  Are you going to want to take out your frustration on me?”  Up until now he’d been running on momentum and shock, he realized, his ears and eyes still swimming with all that he’d heard and seen between Bond and Silva.  Only now did the boffin truly realize what he’d said, and the realization hollowed him out to his core.  He felt like he was going to be sick.

If James didn’t kill him first.

“I just heard you say that you’d hunt me down even if I did get free of this damned collar.  What do you think, Q?” was the icy reply.

“I didn’t…”  Q tried to get his words to form into something defensible, but the free-flowing speech that had struck him earlier was gone, and he stuttered, gulped, then gritted his teeth in frustration.  “I know I said-!  You don’t understand - I don’t have a _choice_!”

Knowing that the only advantage he was going to get was the element of surprise, and that he’d have to move fast to beat 007 to the punch, Q grabbed for the nearest thing – a keyboard, unplugged by Silva’s earlier carnage – and hurled it at James.  In the same movement, Q lurched to his feet, bracing himself this time for the fierce ache of bruised muscles cramping.  He saw surprise flash briefly across 007’s face as the blond-haired man swayed out of the way, the keyboard just missing him.  Q tried to use that tiny window of opportunity to streak through the doorway, but the simple fact was that 007 was too close, and the man recovered too fast.  An arm slithered around his middle as Q shot past, cinching tight in a way that made Q emit a breathless gasp of pain.  It was like being clotheslined, as his momentum was dragged to an abrupt halt by 007’s strength and weight.  Q tried to struggle, grabbing the arm about his bruised lower ribs, but then James’s other arm curled in around Q’s throat.  It was shocking how quickly his air was cut off in the crook of Bond’s arm, and Q gulped for breath even as he felt his struggles growing more feeble.

Distantly, through a fog of impending unconsciousness, Q was aware of James shifting his grip; the arm around Q’s middle moved, releasing for a moment only to come back in and this time trap Q’s arms under it.  Then the choke-hold loosened suddenly, but as Q sucked in the sweetest lungful of air he’d ever had, the arm was replaced by a hand.  It wasn’t suffocating,, but Q still felt a spike of useless terror as James’s strong left hand took up residence around his throat.  The grip was firm and sure, Bond’s hand big enough that the thumb and forefinger each stretched around to press against the delicate hollows behind either side of Q’s jawbone.  Between the grip pinning Q’s arms to his sides and the hold on his neck, Q knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

When Q braced for further violence, however, nothing came.  James just held him like that, as if letting it sink in that there was no escaping him.  Otherwise, the agent made no threats.  Q felt a lot like a cat being held by its scruff, realizing slowly that the only viable option left was to just go limp and stay still.  Fear made those options a bit less viable, but when Q growled and tried valiantly to wriggle free, he was immediately pulled in tight; his bruised ribs creaked under Bond’s strength, and his head was bent back nearly to Bond’s shoulder by the force of the hand snugged up under Q’s chin.  Panting shallowly and too quickly, Q gave up, his brain scrambling madly for other options that didn’t appear.  Even more maddening was that 007 hadn’t made a sound; he may as well have been a machine, or an impossibly tangible ghost, or just an emotionless force of nature.

It was only after Q stopped struggling that James leaned in close to Q’s ear – an easy task, as cozy as they were already.  “Let me _give_ you a choice,” Bond rumbled, and it took a second for Q to connect the sentence to his earlier, frustrated statement.  This was not what Q had expected to hear, and it made him open his eyes and swivel them frantically to try and see James’s face.  The man’s expression was neutral, almost serene, but with something fierce lurking just beneath the surface.  “I know you have morals, Q,” James went on, weathering a halfhearted writhe on Q’s part that was  quickly stifled by just the faintest application of Bond’s strength, “and I know you can’t help but follow them.  It’s a part of who you are, just as my tendency towards violence is a part of me.”  Q whimpered, struggling a bit again, the reminder not doing anything to ease his mind.  He couldn’t get his arms loose, though, and 007 had completely control of his head, James’s hand holding him still like a halter on a skittish horse.

Despite the implication of danger, however, James still didn’t hurt him.  His grip was designed to dominate but not to damage.  “What I’m saying, Q, is that when I agreed to work with you, I didn’t expect anything different.”  Q was so startled to hear that that he went still, and when he stopped fighting, it was like being cradled in iron.  James was inescapable, but he wasn’t moving, wasn’t putting any effort into that violence that apparently came so easily to him.  “Now, can we talk like sensible people?”

“Will you…”  Q’s voice squeaked, so he cleared his throat and tried again, with marginally better results, “Will you let me go?”

“If you promise not to run off like a rabbit into a minefield.”

Unexpectedly, it was the wryly condescending tone of Bond’s last comment that had Q’s panic receding a little.  The Quartermaster even let out a little displeased huff before nodding hesitantly.  The feeling of the soft underside of his jaw brushing Bond’s hand was at once sensual and scary, and Q was still trying to figure out what to do with that sensation when 007’s hands obediently fell away.  The high-Pass agent stepped back and let Q turn around and get his bearings again, putting a bit of space between them.

For a long moment, Q waited for 007 to attack him, but instead an awkward silence stretched between them as the blue-eyed man simply leaned back against the nearest wall with a look of jaded patience on his face.  Bond had taken the time to wipe some of the blood off his face, but a rusty smear remained.  Finally, Q cleared his throat again – still amazed that his throat hadn’t been _crushed_ – and hazarded, “You… already knew that I was going to… say what I did, on the intercom, didn’t you?”

“Not the exact words,” James admitted, powerful shoulders rising and falling, “But I was pretty sure you weren’t just going to let every Hound in Eigengrau walk free, and it’s not like I just _forgot_ about the Smartblood you shot us all up with.”

Q winced, not liking the wording, but also realizing that to say anything else was to sugarcoat what he’d done.

“See – there, in your expression,” James suddenly raised a hand, pointing at Q’s face unexpectedly.  Blue eyes became interested and keen, even as Q grew confused.  “That’s why I didn’t just feed you to Silva, and why I’m not going to assassinate you now.”

“I don’t underst-?”

“You _regret_ what’s been done to us,” James interrupted, finally making his point clear, and Q fell silent.  For a man who dealt in lies and secrets, 007 could be remarkably candid sometimes, and now was one of those times; he spoke slowly and with an immense lucidity usually only found in deathbed speeches, “I can see it on your face that you don’t like what you’ve done, despite everyone here saying that it’s all right.  I can see-”  And now James’s head tilted, hawk-like.  “-That you can be reasoned with.”

Suddenly Q wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.  “Now, wait a moment…”

“Tell me I’m wrong, Q,” Bond interrupted, folding his arms but angling his body forward a bit.  “Your morals say that letting us all walk free is wrong, but they also say that keeping us here like animals is wrong.  What if there was a way to satisfy your morals on both fronts?”  Those blue eyes were xyresic, so sharp that they cut Q to the quick, and pinned him in place like a butterfly to a pegboard.  “Would you do it?  Even if it meant going against the rules that everyone stands by?  What’s important to you, Q – following orders or doing what’s right?”

Q just stared at James for a long second, wondering why no one had warned him about this: they’d told him that James was crazy, that he was deadly, that he was unpredictable.  They hadn’t said that he was a debater and sharp as a tack to boot.  “You already know the answer to that,” Q finally said at a whisper, thinking of his brother, of Sherlock, and how he’d come all the way here just to break Sybil’s rules and save him.

In response, James just smiled – very faintly, just enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes – and nodded.

~^~

Eggsy and Agent 005 sat very still after the Quartermaster’s message ended.  Eggsy straightened up eventually from where he’d been slouched against the agent’s shoulder, surreptitiously smudging the corner of his mouth on his own shoulder, aware that he’d been asleep enough to drool… on Hart’s shoulder.  The man had surely noticed, but was being a nice enough bloke about it not to comment, even giving Eggsy a few moments to just sit in silence and think.

Eventually, Eggsy said, voice a bit raspy from sleep, “You want to know just how much of what he said is true, don’t you?”

“That would be ideal,” Hart said politely.  He was looking forward, still very put-together but with his glasses off now and one button on his shirt undone.  When he drew up one knee to clasp his hand around, he looked very nearly approachable, which jived with what Eggsy remembered of the night before.  There’d been a lot of yelling and fighting and eventually Eggsy screaming and sobbing a lot of things about his family – well, about his mum and baby sis.  If C had threatened his mum’s boyfriend, Dean, Eggsy wouldn’t have batted an eye.  While Dean could go die in a hole, though, Eggsy couldn’t let them hurt the rest of his little family, and he’d somehow ended up spilling all of that to Hart, who had listened surprisingly well for a psychopath.

Eggsy had talked himself into exhaustion and somehow managed to fall asleep before the conversation had turned to C’s plan, however, so now it seemed that it was inevitably turning that way.  Eggsy tested the damned silk tie that was around his wrists again, and grumbled grudgingly, “You take this fucking thing off, and we’ll talk.”

“A fair deal,” Hart gave in equably, and immediately turned, placing an almost fastidious hand on Eggsy’s shoulder to get him to lean forward.  Considering that most of the touches Eggsy was used to from older men were blows from Dean, the gentle touch stood out, and he focused on it despite himself.  One-handed, Hart unraveled the tie with surprising deftness, sitting back to coil it around his hand and look at Eggsy expectantly.  “Now, what do you have to say about the allegations we just heard?”

It felt good to move his arms again.  When he’d attacked Hart earlier, he’d gotten a good workout, but clearly he’d been asleep awhile; he barely remembered submitting to being tied up again, he’d been so exhausted, wrecked more on the inside than on the outside.  Now, Eggsy sighed gustily past his teeth, rolled his shoulders, and stretched his arms around.  “That Quartermaster bloke probably isn’t far wrong, but I don’t know all that much, I swear it,” he finally admitted, self-consciously watching the floor as he spoke and eased the kinks out of his upper body, “C had a job he needed me to do, but outside of that, they kept things pretty close to the vest, you know?”

“Can you tell me exactly what that job was that they needed you for?” Hart asked, still in that conscientiously polite tone that made Eggsy feel like he was an equal.  Like he was worth something.  It was a strange feeling, as even his coworkers here at Eigengrau had had a habit of talking down to him after hearing his accent.  It was weird but nice that Harry Hart wasn’t doing the same.

“It’s pretty obvious, innit?  They needed a pilot in their pocket.  C’s right hand man, Sebastian Moran, was supposed to cripple all the choppers but mine, and he’s probably killed the other pilots, too.”  Eggsy sighed and stretched his legs out, dropping his hands onto his thighs and looking straight ahead in defeat.  “Of course, I don’t think any of them planned on me being jumped by a Hound, so that plan’s probably shot to hell.  Unless you’re thinking of letting me go?”  He rolled his head Hart’s way.

There was a faint twitch at the corner of the agent’s mouth that might have been the birth of a smile, but then the agent was shaking his head.  “No.”  But, before Eggsy could get anxious, Hart added, “Not yet, anyway.  The Quartermaster made a compelling argument about foiling the Director-General’s plan, but I _do_ care about what happens to your family.”

Eggsy’s eyebrows jumped up.  “You do?”

“Yes,” Hart said patiently, as if Eggsy were being silly.

“It’s because of this-”  Eggsy plucked the pendant off his chest, looking down even as he indicated it.  “-Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Hart answered again, but then deigned to go on, drawing in a thoughtful breath while Eggsy settled in to listen.  The desire to do whatever was necessary to protect his baby sister warred with the exhaustion still tugging at him, and the desire to know more about this previously secretive part of his life – this pendant he’d had since childhood, with no explanation.  “I gave it to your mother originally, because…  Well, because your father died saving my life.  He was training to become a Kingsman, you see.”

“A Kingsman?”

“A group not unlike this, really,” Hart indicated Eigengrau in general with a little flick of a hand, the movement both dismissive and strangely elegant.  “Like Eigengrau, they sent out agents around the world to spy and do what needed to be done to protect Queen and Country.  We were disbanded when the Sybil System came online, however.”  In the emergency lighting, Hart’s faint frown had a jaundiced cast, making it seem even more unhappy as he went on, “Apparently our work attracted – or caused – individuals with high Psychopasses, so many of the Kingsman were given the option of joining Eigengrau as its Hounds, or being summarily incarcerated.  Most of us decided that those options sounded like one and the same, and tried to disappear instead.  Sadly, it can be difficult to hide from a machine with a trillion metaphorical eyes.”  Hart’s words finished on a clearly sour note, but he waved it off and added, “All that was after your father, however.  While he was still a candidate, we encountered a bomb, and he threw himself in the way of it to protect the rest of the team.  So, you see…”  The agent turned to look at Eggsy squarely now, and it was almost as hard to meet those frank eyes as it was to break away from them, once contact was made.  Hart’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried weight in it like an iceberg floating on the sea, “…I wasn’t able to repay your father, but I owe quite a debt to his name, which is what that pendant signifies.”

“So that’s…?”  Eggsy had to swallow, the pure magnitude of what was happening here starting to reach him: yes, he was being blackmailed into assisting in the breakout of over a score of dangerous people, but one of the _most_ dangerous in that group was also basically saying that Eggsy had inherited a favor from him.  A life-debt.  “So that’s why you’re willing to help me rather than just, you know, kill me?” he hazarded.

Hart was definitely smiling now, a wry expression that included just the very corner of one side of his mouth.  Then the man reached into his pocket, saying magnanimously and perhaps with a touch of humor, “Yes, Eggsy.  I’ll even give you your knife back.”

Sticking his hand out hurriedly when he realized that the agent was actually serious, Eggsy felt marginally better once the familiar weight of his knife was nestled in his palm, the blade safely tucked away.  Still looking at the knife, struggling to identify all that he was feeling, Eggsy said roughly, “Hey, Hart?”

“Call me Harry.”

“Harry,” Eggsy acquiesced, tasting the first name shyly in his mouth, and finally looking up from under his eyebrows at the older man, “You’re not such a bad bloke, for a Hound.”

That earned him a snort, and the half-smile deepened just a fraction.  Eggsy felt unaccountably chuffed at the sight of the expression, because he had the sneaking suspicion that Hart – Harry – wasn’t the kind of just go around showing his feelings all the time.  When the agent replied, there was even a bit of amusement slipping into his posh voice, “Contrary to what all the stereotypes would have you believe, having a high Psychopass and being absolutely psychotic are not synonymous.  I’d like to think that I have at least a moderately functional moral compass, and even Hannibal respects good manners.”

“Hannibal?”

“The Cannibal.”

“Shit,” Eggsy swung his head around to stare forward again, wondering for the umpteenth time just what he’d gotten himself into.  Then, suddenly suspicious, he swiveled his eyes to look at Harry askance, asking very slowly, “Do you…?”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, and for a second, Harry looked confused, brows lowering.  Then realization lit the other man’s gaze up like a spark, and suddenly a bark of laughter destroyed the agent’s professional façade entirely.  It took him a moment, in fact, to get himself under control again, cutting off his laughter to occasional coughs of breath.  “Do I eat people?  No, Eggsy, I most certainly do _not_ eat people.  I’ve killed people, yes, and I’m good at it, but I like to think that I’ve never done that without good cause.”  Sobering, Harry sighed, and he looked older around the eyes as he stared off into the distance and said quietly, “Everyone thinks that the Sybil System tracks down madmen, but I think, in reality, that what it does is simply identify very deadly people – but sometimes, deadly and dangerous are not the same thing.  Deadly people are capable of great evils, true, but as a Kingsman, all of my great evils were in the name of keeping my country and the people I cared about safe.”  Harry’s eyes dropped as he plucked unseen lint from the knees of his trousers, but he continued thoughtfully, “I imagine that the same could be said for many of the men and women here.”

Eggsy sat back, nodding as he digested that slowly.  Because it seemed like the right thing to do – quid pro quo – he started to speak, and by the slight twitch at his side, Harry was surprised at his topic choice almost immediately, “I knew that my da had some military training, even if I didn’t know much else, and Mum wouldn’t say much.  So I wanted to, you know, follow in his footsteps.  So I enlisted.”  He shrugged, looking off at the far wall of the loo, trying not to get too lost in the memories and trying not to notice the man beside him watching him, “I learned a lot of stuff – how to fly a helicopter, obviously – but then I started getting calls from Mum about how she had this new boyfriend-”

“Dean?” Harry guessed softly.

Sighing and nodding, Eggsy shifted his shoulders in a motion that was less of a shrug and more of a rolling motion like a dog trying to shake off dust.  He summed up quickly, stiffly, “He’s bad news, but Mum won’t see it, so I realized I had to come home and keep everyone safe.  So I left training.  Done a lot of stuff since then that I’m not proud of.”  There – now they were on more equal footing.  Harry Hart was a killer, but Eggsy Unwin wasn’t exactly clean as the driven snow either, even if he apparently hadn’t done anything bad enough to attract the Sybil System yet.

Long silences were beginning to characterize their conversation, and another followed as Eggsy stopped talking and just sat where he was tensely, beginning to get fidgety.  He didn’t want to get up and move, though, because as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was desperate to hear more about if – or how – Harry planned to help him.

“Eggsy,” Harry said after the moment had stretched nearly to the point of intolerance, just as Eggsy was sucking in a breath to explode into speech himself.  The way the older man said his name was always so imperative somehow, and Eggsy found himself letting out his inhale in a rush, turning his head.  Harry opened his mouth and started to say something, then stopped with a vaguely consternated look and asked instead, “Is your name _really_ ‘Eggsy’?”

That tricked a cheeky smile onto Eggsy’s face.  “Don’t knock it, bruv.  It’s more my name than ‘Oxford’ is.”

Harry accepted that with a faintly discontented frown that Eggsy abruptly wanted to chuckle at, but reined himself in.  The older man had started talking again, more seriously this time, turning so that his body-language showed that his complete focus was on Eggsy – which, needless to say, was kind of a novel experience.  Most of the time, Eggsy was either summarily dismissed as a lowlife back at home, or else he had Dean’s complete attention because the bastard was warming up to thrash him.  For a moment, in fact, Eggsy tensed up under Harry’s eyes, before he read the compassion in them and cautiously relaxed.  “Well then, Eggsy, what I wanted to say is that no one should have that much responsibility at your age.”  Before Eggsy could bristle again and say that he was doing just fine with that responsibility, despite his age, Harry continued in the same steady voice, “And I think that if your father were still alive, he’d be amazed by what you’ve accomplished.”

Eggsy abruptly felt unbalanced; he couldn’t get his footing, couldn’t figure out how to respond or even how to take in that last statement.  And the worst part was, Harry didn’t even seem to be making shit up – everything about him announced sincerity, and even now he was waiting and watching Eggsy patiently, as if prepared to answer all denials in that same calm tone.  It was… scary… to have someone really see him, and then find words that could hit so close to Eggsy’s heart.  The younger man had to look away, his eyes unaccountably hot.  He mumbled awkwardly, desperate to say something and dispel the weight of those words, “Not sure that’s a compliment, you know – after all, what I’ve accomplished so far is to get myself tangled up with terrorists, and I couldn’t even do that right.  I’m sure my da would be thrilled to know that I’ve endangered everyone I care about.”

“He’d be proud to know how steadfastly you are fighting for those people,” Harry asserted, but thankfully stopped pushing after that.  Which was good, because Eggsy was starting to realize with horror that the heat behind his eyes might be tears on their way.  In a most brisk tone, Harry went on, “You do, however, seem to be desperately in need of help.”

“Gee, thanks,” Eggsy drawled back, now fighting a lopsided smile.

He was pretty sure he heard Harry mutter “Cheeky pup” before continuing as if Eggsy hadn’t just backtalked him, “From what I’ve gathered of your present employer, and what I know about mad supervillains – which is much more than I’d care to admit – he seems the untrustworthy type.  It’s possible, Eggsy, that he’ll just kill you when this is over.”

Eggsy swallowed, then clenched his jaw, speaking past gritted teeth, “So long as he doesn’t hurt my mum and sis, I don’t care what the fuck he does with me.”  He kept his eyes ruthlessly down and focused on his own clenched fists, but was still aware that Harry was just sitting and staring at him.

It was only slowly, after another long pause, that Harry began speaking again, “Be that as it may, it’s safe to say that you can’t depend on C keeping to his deal.  On the other hand, what little I know of Eigengrau’s Quartermaster is that he’s a fair sort of fellow.  He’s new here – not jaded – and even has a pleasantly naïve outlook on high-Pass agents.”

“What do you mean?”  Eggsy himself hadn’t met the man, but he’d sounded pretty impressive over the intercoms.

Harry replied thoughtfully, “I rather think he sympathizes with us, or at least doesn’t regard us as soulless monsters.”  Canny eyes flicked to Eggsy.  “I think he might be the better horse to bet on, if you’ll pardon the colloquialism.”

“I’ll pardon whatever the hell you like, so long as it keeps my family safe,” Eggsy replied flatly, and finally the restlessness was too much.  He got up, dragging a hand back through his hair as his legs drove him to pace.  Only on his returning strides did he realize that Harry had stood, too, as silent as smoke.  Eggsy had a dizzying little moment where he realized that the agent had been quietly preparing for Eggsy to bolt, in which case Harry had already proven himself more than capable of running the younger man down.  For an older gentleman, Harry was one scary mother…  “So, what’s your plan?  It’s already pretty clear to me that the choices I’ve got right now are all shite.”

“Well, fortunately for us,” Harry mused out loud, posture relaxing infinitesimally when it was clear that Eggsy was sticking around, “we’ve got three days to decide.  Are you supposed to report to C before then?”

“Sort of.”  Eggsy fished around in his pockets and pulled out a phone.  Harry looked surprised, and then suddenly disgruntled, and Eggsy grinned and guessed with sudden insight, “After you took my knife, you didn’t even bother to frisk me, did you?  Shameful.”

“Shameful is how easily I disarmed you in the first place,” Harry sniffed back, then nodded imperiously to the phone.

The intent to change the topic was clear, and Eggsy acquiesced, even if he kept smirking.  “C shut down everything, and Eigengrau is real big on not letting outside electronics in, but Moran got me this one.  It still works, and I should probably check in soon to at least tell them that I’m not dead.”  He glowered down at the mobile in his hand, suddenly hating it.  “Technically, I was supposed to be at my chopper before the power went out, but _someone_ interrupted.”

Harry looked utterly unrepentant.  “I take it C and his men will be moving that way now?”

Opening the phone, Eggsy saw two missed calls and half a dozen messages, and he wrinkled his nose in an even stronger frown while he answered distractedly, “Yeah.  Moran and I had already hid supplies there, and I was supposed to hold down the fort until they came.  Then we’d all wait until day three.”

“So it’s defensible?”

“Definitely.”  Eggsy looked up, beginning to get curious about where Harry was going with this.  “Cased the place myself.”  When Harry met his eyes with faint surprise, Eggsy’s expression became a bit more guilty, and he gave one shoulder an uneasy roll, “Dean runs with a bad crowd, and sometimes it was safer to run with ’em than against ’em, all right?”

“I wasn’t judging you, Eggsy,” Harry assured in that calm tone again, and further soothed the issue by quickly moving forward instead of dwelling on Eggsy’s less reputable skills and how he’d learned them, “I’m wondering if there’s perhaps a way we can control the situation without putting your family in danger, but also without giving C everything he wants.”

“What are you thinking?” Eggsy asked, eyes narrowing.

“I’m thinking that you should do exactly as you’re told,” Harry said unexpectedly, but his mouth was curling in that faint, cool smile again, and his eyes were like a sly old fox’s as he went on, “You should check in with C, tell him that things got a bit hectic but are under control, and then go to the helicopter pad.  And I think that you should take me with you.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sits back with a contented sigh* I got to write unabashedly lethal James... touch-starved bebe Eggsy... and Harry having to actually say "I most certainly do not eat people." My life is a good one :3 
> 
> I just want to stop and say how much I appreciate everyone who has/does/will comment on my chapters - I still don't have time to reply (not while writing at the same time, and I figure you guys want new chapters more than comment-replies), but the comments always make my entire day <3
> 
> Next chapter: Time to check in on Hannibal and Will - and Ianto and Jack! Hannibal is probably the only one having a good time out of the four...


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Ianto are both in the hands of Hounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a bit of backtracking, so note the first line about when this all starts :)

~^~

The night before

~^~

Hannibal had been a surgeon once, fascinated by the ways in which the body could be fixed – and bent, and broken.  Eventually, however, the mysteries of the body had begun to grown mundane to him, so he’d switched to psychology.  The mind was infinitely more complex, he found – and moldable.  The human body could be so frangible, but the mind could be played with a lot longer before it began to snap.  Hannibal had by no means forgotten his surgical skills, however, and while he was academically worried that Will’s mind might indeed have snapped after what had just occurred, he kept his focus on the body.

It was easy to put together a makeshift bandage for Will’s shoulder, clearly the worst of his injuries.  The bullet was still lodged in his flesh, and the hole was bleeding steadily in a way that would definitely kill Will if left untreated.  The profiler had made a soft, animal whining sound when Hannibal had gently urged him to lean against the wall, but at least the dark-haired man had stayed there – all wide eyes and quivering limbs, like a terrified deer – as Hannibal efficiently stalked over to the nearest corpse and ripped the man’s shirt for bandage-cloth.  Will had writhed in pain and cried out more loudly when Hannibal swiftly but skillfully tied a compress to Will’s shoulder, under his jacket but over his shirt, though Hannibal had had to make himself deaf to the sounds of pain.  The important thing had been accomplished: the bleeding was stemmed.  “An inelegant fix,” Hannibal assured with some measure of apology in his hands and eyes as he cupped Will’s blood-flecked face in one hand and stroked his hair back with the other.  The dark curls tangled around his fingers.  “But it’ll do for now.  Come, Will.”

Will had barely been in any state to walk when they’d left the scene of Will’s killings – Will’s awakening.  He’d been nonverbal, and only responsive in the most basic ways, although fortunately that included following simple commands, such as Hannibal coaxing him to put one foot in front of the other and lean on the agent.  Hannibal had taken good care of his body over the years, keeping it fit and strong, and Will was a man of average size at best, meaning Hannibal was able to keep them moving with minimal assistance from Will himself.  Eventually, though, even Will’s instinctive obedience wasn’t enough to keep him moving.  Then, Hannibal had simply stopped, hushing the younger man softly, and bent down to hook a hand under Will’s knees.  He picked him up with a grunt of effort, marveling at the feeling of carrying a living body – he’d had more practice transporting fresh corpses.

Most living beings would have protested this sort of treatment strenuously, but Will had merely curled into Hannibal, still shaking as if he’d just been pulled out of a freezer and sweating like he was dying underneath a southern sun.  Sometimes his eyes were open, but Hannibal quickly recognized that there was no awareness in Will’s gaze – just a glassy gaze, empty of its mind.  It was ironic, really, considering just how many minds had been brought forth to peer out from those olive-green eyes.  It was also ironic and almost humbling how fragile Will felt now in his arms, after having seen how terrifyingly dangerous Will could become when it was needed.

It made Hannibal feel… strangely protective.  It was like a fierce fire starting up in his chest – probably the same fire that dragons felt when they found a jewel that outshone everything else in their whole hoard.

By dint of being a careful man, and a particularly healthy one, Hannibal had visited Medical infrequently, and therefore was largely unfamiliar with it.  The kitchens, on the other hand, were quite well known to him, and closer besides.  While most Hounds at Eigengrau focused on trying to win over their Handlers or sometimes the guards, it had always been far more important to Hannibal to be in the good graces of the cooks.  Being allowed to at least have a hand in preparing his own meals was possibly the one thing that made his stay at Eigengrau marginally bearable, so it was with great familiarity that he traced his way to the kitchens and backed through the doors.  It was empty inside, predictably (few people realized what an arsenal a kitchen could provide, and it wouldn’t be until later today that everyone began to realize that they had to eat), although the emergency lighting was sub-par.  Fortunately, Hannibal had worked in worse conditions… but usually only with corpses.

Will groaned as Hannibal set him down on a stainless steel table.  The older man was already going through his memories to recollect where everything he’d need was, and he spared only a moment to ensure that Will didn’t fall off the table in the meanwhile – a few steady strokes to Will’s forehead and softly murmured words of assurance did the trick.  Will subsided, still swallowing spasmodically as if he had a taste in his mouth he couldn’t get rid of.  Hannibal could constantly hear the faint noises of Will’s elbows and heels against the stainless steel as the man’s body continued its unhealthy shaking.  Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Hannibal to return with what he needed.

“Will, can you hear me?” he asked, mostly out of politeness.  He didn’t expect much of a response, and didn’t get one – Will was somewhere else, perhaps tucked deep within his own psyche, hiding from the wolves he’d called forth to fill his head.  Hannibal wondered if he could get Will to befriend those wolves, instead of fear them…  Putting that thought aside for the moment, Hannibal cupped Will’s head again, thumbing the smooth shell of his ear and then burying his fingers in damp, thick, black curls.  Hannibal had asked for a cooking brandy some weeks back, and was grateful that he had used only a small portion of what the cooks had graciously provided – because now he coaxed some of it into Will, needing him even more pliant than he was.

At first, Will coughed and rebelled against the idea of drinking the alcohol, showing that there was some fight in him yet.  His right arm didn’t seem to want to work properly, but his left one came up to grip Hannibal’s arm with surprising strength.  “Don’t fight me, Will,” Hannibal commanded flatly and calmly, persevering.  When he clenched his fingers in the hair at the back of Will’s head, that seemed to garner more of a response than words had, fortunately.  The Eigengrau profiler gasped and his grip faltered, and when next Hannibal pressed the bottle to his lips, Will swallowed.  

When Hannibal judged that Will had drunk enough for the alcohol to dull the pain, he put the cooking spirits aside and focused on the grimmer part of his task.  Cutting implements were sanitized – Hannibal always kept a clean kitchen, and when he was using someone else’s kitchen, he knew how to recreate that same level of surgical cleanliness – and Will’s jacket, then shirt, were cut swiftly away from his right arm and shoulder.  The bandage was likewise removed, all without hesitation or squeamishness, even as Will tossed his head uneasily.  Hannibal only spared a glance to watch Will’s response when the wound received its first prodding, checking for how much pain the younger man felt.  At the moment, Hannibal wasn’t entirely sure whether he cared or not how much he hurt Will – Agent 003 certainly never felt any remorse for causing anyone else pain – but he definitely cared whether pain made his patient difficult to handle.  Fortunately, besides the intermittent shivering and head movement, Will seemed very nearly unconscious, breath smelling strongly of Courvoisier.

Having determined that he could work unimpeded, Hannibal paused only for a moment more.  It felt… nice… to work on a living body for a change.  He still cut into living tissue from time to time, but the end result was always death, and that was not the case here.  Placing a hand to Will’s bare shoulder, redness smeared over a respectable musculature and pale skin, Hannibal felt a sense of reverence that he hadn’t in decades.

Will’s shoulder shivered beneath his hand, muscles tautening faintly, like the withers of an anxious horse, then relaxing.  Inviting.

Hannibal pressed the tip of the knife to Will’s skin to widen the wound and begin his hunt for the bullet.

~^~

Will was sleeping – really sleeping, not catatonic or in the throes of a fit.  Hannibal had gotten the gas cooker working (one of the few things still operational with the electricity off, after Hannibal found the matches to light the pilot), and the surrounding area was warming up slowly.  He’d found a stash of tablecloths rarely used, and had unfolded and laid them out as a pallet on the floor – just enough to insulate Will from the chilliness of the tile.  Will’s ruined coat and Hannibal's much more sophisticated jacket had gone over the profiler, and now Hannibal was sitting back in a metal folding chair and just watching.  If he stretched out a foot, the tip of his shoe could just touch Will’s left elbow.  Will’s right arm was secured across his chest in a sling, bandages made of teatowels hiding Hannibal’s good work.  Finding something to work as a needle had been harder than finding thread, but it had been a necessary inconvenience to keep the wound from gaping.

Hannibal rolled the retrieved bullet around in his hand and listened to Will breath, steady and slow.

The words from the intercom were coming back to him, now that he had the leisure time to mull them over.  At the time they’d seemed monumentally unimportant, but now that this eminently intriguing young American was stabilized, Hannibal was pondering what the Quartermaster had said.  Like all agents, Hannibal yearned for freedom again, but he wanted it on his own terms.  It was good to know that C’s offer, at least, had strings attached.  Hannibal would have to find his own way out then.

He wondered, idly, if Will would help him.  Even the most selfish people felt a basic sensation of obligation to repay a person for saving their life – and while Hannibal had only stood back and watched while Will fought for his life, Will didn’t know that.  And even so, Hannibal had stepped in when it counted.  Will had been bleeding, in shock, and essentially helpless when Hannibal had stepped in, and now the intriguing young man was cleaned of the worst of the blood, patched up with great skill given the circumstances, and slowly warming up.

Even if Will wasn’t in any condition to be useful when he woke up, Hannibal knew that he’d have to keep Will alive.  It was a fact that had sprung up like a pillar within his mind, as firm as granite.  It was as simple as this: in Will, Hannibal had seen something awe-inspiring, and the thought of losing the opportunity to understand it was unbearable.  Hannibal did a surprisingly large number of things in his life purely because he was curious to see what would happen, but never had he found his curiosity so fully entangled with a whole _person_.  He wasn’t just interested in seeing how Will would react to certain stimuli in certain situations – he was interested in _all_ of him.

The question was: What was more important?  Escaping Eigengrau to hunt freely again… or following this new and brilliant star that had just appeared, even if it meant living in chains a bit longer?

Hannibal leaned forward, quietly brushing one last bead of blood from Will’s split lip as it escaped.  As the older man sat back, still thoughtful, he brought the droplet of redness to his mouth, sucking it off as if the copper taste might contain the answers he needed.  Oracles and gods alike divined their best answers from the blood of others, and as Hannibal sat in the dark, he considered all that C had said, and all that the Quartermaster had said, and all that he’d seen Will do in the heat of battle.

~^~

As Ianto had expected, things were really starting to get out of hand.  The leader of their group, Moran, was struggling to keep everyone from turning on each other – or him – and was only managing it because he was a truly fearsome individual when his ire was roused.  Moran was build tall and lean, but while he wasn’t the most powerful-looking man in the room, he had a calm deadliness to his eyes that had intensified with intent now that people were threatening him.  The first person to take a swing at Moran found out that there was no bluff in that look either: Moran moved with a speed that Ianto hadn’t even seen from most Hounds, and in just seconds the would-be mutineer was face-down on the floor with his arm hyperextended behind him.  Moran, teeth bared, looked everyone in the eye… and calmly dislocated the arm, not even twitching at the scream he elicited.  Moran’s lips settled back over his teeth again like an alpha wolf realizing that it was regaining the proper respect, but everyone was still itching for a fight.  The Quartermaster’s words had made them question everything, and Moran’s answers and reassurances weren’t satisfying them.

What made matters worse was that some of them were starting to eye Ianto, too.  No one was sure who the enemy was anymore, but they could still sense the most vulnerable person in the room.

With that in mind, it seemed like a stellar idea at the time to bolt for the door at the same second everyone started circling up around Moran again.  “Ian-!” he heard Jack bark in surprise behind him, and he wasn’t sure if Harkness was legitimately using the fake name or if it was just a coincidence that he cut off at the right time.  Either way, Ianto wasn’t waiting to find out, because he was a decent runner, and the way to the door was probably never going to be clear again-

He was tripped in the doorway, seeing the slender foot and ankle appear at the last second but unable to get his limbs coordinated in time to jump them.  Ianto was fast – but he was not always massively adroit.  Landing face-first on the floor, he barely managed to break his fall, and all the wind was knocked clean out of him.  Dazed, he didn’t even have it in him to groan for a few moments, and he only distantly heard footsteps walking up to him.  Fingers gripped his hair, and he choked out a little noise of winded discomfort.

Above him, Root spoke, “My, my, but everyone is jumpy today.”  Her voice was pleasant, but it still made Ianto’s attempts to breathe halt in his chest.  Fear made a spasming fist around his heart.  Root knew who he was, just like Harkness did, but while the latter hadn’t given him away, Ianto doubted that he’d be so lucky with Agent 009.  Her attention, however, appeared to be focused on the room behind him, and Ianto had a moment to consider how bad the lighting was, and that he’d faceplanted before he could see Root – and possibly before she could really see him in return.  “Are you guys not getting along?” she chided in motherly tones, even as her fingers traveled unexpectedly from Ianto’s hair down the side of his face, hooking like warm claws under his chin.  With that grip, she levered his head up painfully, and Ianto found the air to grunt as the strain on his neck swiftly became unbearable.  It was at that point, however, that he was able to look over and see that Root was squatting next to him with her head turned completely away.  She only had eyes for the room; she’d dismissed him as beneath her notice, and he’d never been so happy in his life to be nonthreatening.  Ianto couldn’t see far enough to figure out what else was happening, though, and Root leaned one knee forward on the back of his arm before he could push himself up to relieve the tension on his neck.

Seb – Moran – answered in a voice that did little to hide its irritation, “What are you doing here, Root?”

“That’s hardly any way to treat an ally,” Root purred chidingly, and Ianto imagined the reaction: everything behind him was dead quiet, and it was probably because Root was fucking scary, and she was subtly reminding everyone that she was on Moran’s side.  Many people kind of forgot that agents like Harkness – with his smiles and goofy banter – were lethally dangerous, but no one forgot that Root was.  She reminded them too often.  “But fine, if you must know, you were on my way.  I was trying to track down the Quartermaster, and I was able to pinpoint where he used the intercom.”

“If you know where he was last, then you’d better get going,” Harkness broke in unexpectedly, in that emotionlessly flat voice that made Ianto’s breath catch again.  When Harkness sounded calm was the time to get scared.  The man could laugh in the face of danger, yes, but when he was taking the situation seriously it meant that things were on a whole different threat-level with him.  He sounded like the kind of predator that stalked quietly in the shadows.  “You can bet he’s not going to stay put long, if he’s smart.”

Root tipped Ianto’s head back further, until there were tears in his eyes.  “Jack, so nice to see you having an opinion,” she said in a voice that indicated quite the opposite, and gave no indication whatsoever that she was slowly hyperextending the neck of her prey, “You should really stick to talking about just what you know.  Like sexual advice.”

“Good to know that I’m appreciated,” Jack joked back in typical Jack-style, although there was still something stiff and serrated in his voice.  Ianto tried not to whimper, knowing that the only way to possibly make this situation worse would be to draw attention to himself.  True, Root was entirely capable of snapping his neck without ever bothering to find out who he was, but if she realized that he was Ianto Jones, M’s secretary, she’d play with her food first.

While Ianto was becoming increasingly fond of the idea of a quick execution, heavier footsteps strode his way, and it wasn’t until he heard the voice that he realized it was Harkness.  “Here – let me take that.  This one’s mine, and people are always telling me not leave my things lying around.”

Jack must have been turning on the charm, or else Root really was in a bit of a hurry to get going again, because the next set of fingers that fisted in Ianto’s hair felt larger – and, ironically enough, more familiar.  Root let go even as Jack hauled Ianto up painfully by the hair, forcing Ianto to stumble forward even as he scrambled to gain his feet.  Only in hindsight did Ianto realize that that movement deftly dragged him away from Root, making sure he never turned to face her as he rose.  It was all extremely well choreographed, and Ianto got a better appreciation of the fact that Jack Harkness was actually a far more tactful, skilled individual than most gave him credit for.  The hand in his hair switched to his nape, unfortunately, before Ianto could completely catch his balance and straighten – meaning that Ianto ended up tripping to a halt at Jack’s side, facing away from Root, but with the hand on his nape forcing him to stay bent over with his arse to everyone.  ‘Humiliating’ was a pretty apt word for it, but Ianto couldn’t think of any good way to fight Harkness’s hold without also risking Root’s dangerous attention.  Plus, Jack’s big hand was like a vice, and suddenly Ianto felt a lot more sympathy for all of the Hounds with their collars.

Surprisingly, it was Moran who inadvertently saved the day, saying with boredom and impatience warring in his voice, “Harkness picked up a pet on the way here – leave him be.”

“It’s cute how you think you can give me orders,” Root replied, and it was pretty clear at that point that her attention had shifted.  Her voice sounded like sharp steel beneath thin silk.

“You know what’s not cute?” Moran shot back, clearly irked now, “You saying you know where the Quartermaster is, but wasting time here.  Or were you just making up stories for us?”

While the argument got more catty, Ianto felt a tug on his neck, and felt Jack’s other hand fall on his upper arm.  “Come on,” the agent whispered, and then he was turning and quietly hustling Ianto out of view.  They didn’t go back down the hall they’d entered by, but instead detoured into a small room that turned out to be a supply-closet.  Ianto immediately struggled, and this time was gratified to be turned loose – even if he couldn’t get very far.  Still, Ianto immediately retreated to the far end of the compact room, eyes darting around until he spied a likely weapon in the dimness.  It turned out to be a mop, but he still brandished it stubbornly.  

Jack, blocking the closed door, raised both hands unthreateningly.  “Easy there, Ianto.  Just calm down.”

“Or what?  You’ll threaten to fuck me raw?” Ianto shot back harshly, and just barely kept his voice down below a bellow.  He truly was capable of being very loud when he wanted to be, and Jack was already trying to frantically hush him.

“Dammit, Jones, do you want everyone hearing you?!”

All of the fear from the past hours turning to venom in his mouth, Ianto lowered his volume but still hissed back with low, rumbling precision, “They’ll just think you’re using me.  Your bloody _pet_.”  When Jack, expression embarrassed and pained, took a step forward and kept making placating gestures, Ianto snapped, “ _No_!  You stay right where you are!”

“Ianto, stop it.  You know me-”

“No, I don’t!  You’re with _them_ , Jack, and you’ve taken me hostage, for Christ-sake.”

Jack’s expression was getting more and more awkwardly strained, but he tried to take another step forward again, only to have Ianto nearly nail him with the mop.  “It’s not what it seems like, okay?” Harkness tried weakly as he dodged, glancing nervously at the door but then focusing back on Ianto when the other man took another swing at him with the mop.  “ _Dammit-_!  Look, Ianto, I was doing what I had to do!” he finally snarled with a bit less embarrassment and a bit more frustration in his voice.

If Jack was frustrated, then that still didn’t put him anywhere near to understanding Ianto – because the Welshman was bloody fucking furious.  And scared.  And confused.  “You dragged me through that whole pack of bastards like some kind of prize-winning bitch – and I’m going to have bruises on my arms!”  Ianto had meant his voice to be full of anger, but somehow his fear was getting through.  It must have been showing more on his face, too, because Jack dropped his hands and looked shocked – and regretful.  That only made it worse, and Ianto found the mop vibrating in his hands, suddenly unsteady.  The Welshman backed up without consciously telling his legs to move, until his body was hugging the shadows, seeking the comfort of walls at his back.  “What’s worse, I keep having to hear everyone talking about me like I’m a cheap whore who’s going to get it any minute – and that’s when I’m not fucking terrified that someone will find out who I really am.”

“No one knows your real identity-” Jack tried.

“ _You_ do,” Ianto squeaked, embarrassed by how his voice rose and cracked, but at this point there really was no more hiding his fear.  He was as petrified and lost as a baby bird fallen out of the nest too early – he had no proper feathers with which to fly away, and while he technically had beak and claws, they were hardly weapons to boast about when compared to the predators he was now in the thick of.    

For a moment there was silence except for Ianto breathing too quickly and too loudly, and then Jack’s soft, slow sigh as something deeply sad came over his expression.  Harkness had two settings, Ianto had realized: either he was an open book, his face a font of a million emotions, or he was as unreadable as a statue.  He’d been largely unreadable ever since Ianto had been captured, and Ianto had begun to fear that that was Harkness’s normal face – that everything else was a fancy mask to hide the monster underneath.  Now, though, Jack’s sympathy and apology were so clear to read even in the dimness that Ianto found his reserve melting.  He made a little whine in his throat, suddenly wanting nothing more than for Jack to just gather him in and hug the breath out of him.  “Jack,” he said, very soft and pleading, “please tell me this is going to be all right.”

Pain swept across Jack’s face, visceral and deep.  Very solemnly – but very sincerely – he stated, “It’s going to be okay, Ianto.  You’re going to be okay.”  When Ianto just squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and shook his head, his mind still too pumped full of adrenaline to accept that, Jack went on more fervently, “I know what you heard, and I know what I had to say, but none of that was real, Ianto.  Do you hear me?”  He stepped closer, and this time when Ianto swung the mop at him, it was half-hearted, and Jack caught the makeshift stave easily in one hand.  Then he pushed it aside and stepped even closer, until Ianto was crowded against the wall and Jack’s broad chest and shoulders were filling his vision.  He wasn’t sure whether they made him feel safe or terrified at this moment.

Face in absolute shadow but voice low and painfully familiar – and gentle as a caress – Jack finished, “I won’t let anyone hurt you.  Not _anyone_.”  Strength was filling his voice, so that even though the volume remained unchanged, it was like hearing the protective rumbles of a mother bear for her cub as Jack went on, “Those jackasses can say whatever they like, but if anyone had tried to lay a hand on you, I’d have snapped it off at the shoulder, no hesitation.”  By this point, Ianto knew that he was hearing the truth, because this was undeniably Jack Harkness: this was all of the merciless lethality that had got him thrown into Eigengrau, the callousness that gave him a dangerously high Psychopass – but this was also the caring warmth that had gentled Ianto through a climax, and then stayed with him even when they were done fooling around and were just lazing around in bed.  There was no need to try and figure out if this was the ‘real’ Harkness or not, or if he was hiding behind a façade, because Ianto was seeing all of him now.

They were chest to chest, both breathing a little bit fast.  Ianto was still terrified out of his mind, and frustrated by his own inability to get over that terror, but he was having a harder and harder time resisting the urge to just fall into Jack.  And, of course, then Jack had to lean his head in until their foreheads almost brushed, and say softly, “Can you trust me on that?”

Ianto tried to control the fine tremor in his limbs.  He tried to keep it out of his voice, too, even as he watched the words as they were formed on Jack’s lips.  “I kind of want to punch you,” he admitted instead of answering.

Those lips formed a quirky smile.  “I get that a lot.”

“And if you ever try to use ‘pet’ as a cute nickname – _ever_ – I’m going to knock you head over arse.”

“You know, those lovely Welsh vowels of yours somehow make even that sound kind of sexy-”

“Oh, shut up,” Ianto groaned, and leaned forward in a desperate surge, catching Jack’s mouth with his.  In their past encounters, it was usually – no, always – Jack who started things.  Jack who had first started coming on to Ianto, starting with compliments about how he looked in his tight trousers and neat vests and ending with veritable sonnets about his ‘Welsh vowels’.  Jack who had slowly wheedled his way past Ianto’s defenses and into the secretary’s good graces, and eventually managed to steal a kiss or two without getting slapped.  Jack didn’t take without permission, but he definitely was determined to get that permission.  Almost before Ianto knew it, he was doing something he hadn’t done since Lisa, and most certainly had never done with a man: sex, hot and hurried in the rarely used west-wing locker-room.  It should have been awkward and uncomfortable, but Jack had made it _good_ , and Ianto hadn’t quite regretted it enough to refuse to do it again three days later (this time on an actual bed).  Jack was a shameless flirt and everyone knew it, and it was also well known that he slept with anyone and everyone, so Ianto hadn’t really thought much of it beyond the sex.  Which was incredible.

But then some of those nights had ended up lasting longer, ending sweeter.  Bodies lingering in beds, fingers trailing down sweat-damp sides long after the orgasms had faded to a happy hot buzz.  And finally had come the morning when Ianto woke up and Jack was still in bed with him, and he’d realized that there was something more going on here than just repeated convenient fucking.

Now, Ianto felt like all of the horror he’d been holding left him in a rush as Jack immediately kissed him back – determinedly, ferociously, Ianto’s back actually connecting with a little thud against the wall as the larger agent pressed against him like a wave on the beach.  The way Jack growled into the kiss even as Ianto sobbed a little bit in fading terror, the way Jack gripped him… that wasn’t the kind of thing that you did to a random fuck-buddy.  The kiss lasted only seconds, and when it ended, Ianto was indeed being crushed into a hug, feeling the safest he had since the day before with his chin hooked over Jack’s strong shoulder.  “It’s going to be okay, Ianto,” Jack said, as fierce as a hailstorm, “I promise.”

Finally feeling safe enough to take stock, to really think things through, Ianto circled his arms around Jack in return.  He wet his lips before saying, after a pause that he wished could last forever, “Before you go and make promises… I should probably tell you what I’ve got in my pocket.”  ‘ _A lump of technology that could potentially free you from that collar, and that a lot of people will probably kill me for_ ,’ he finished fatalistically in his head.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ianto in trouble :3 Gotta love it. And Hannibal, deciding whether to covet or destroy someone... *contented evil purring*


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which M is having a bad day; Eggsy manages to surprise Harry (just a teensy bit); Q realizes that he's a bit of a glutton for punishment when he's tired... and James might have a kink for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone remember 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" Well, this is "Where in the world is Gareth Mallory," multiplayer addition ;)

~^~

The Quartermaster’s gallant defense of M over the intercom might have done some good, but Gareth Mallory certainly wasn’t seeing any of that good, and he was running out of bullets.

Gareth had been in battle before, and had certainly done his fair share of shooting – he’d even killed people in the line of duty before, something that nowadays was considered very dangerous to one’s Psychopass, hence the use of Hounds to do Britain’s dirty work.  Since becoming M of Eigengrau, however, Gareth had gotten a bit out of practice, and he was cursing every second that he hadn’t spent either at the range or sparring with Merlin from Q-branch.  His latest shot hadn’t quite hit home, and now Mallory was down to three bullets in his clip, no refill of ammo, and just as many people on his tail as he’d had one shot ago.  Gareth’s grandfather, an avid hunter who’d grown up rough where you brought home a meal with every bullet or you got whipped, was no doubt writhing in his grave right now.

So far as M could tell, Q’s best intentions had gone nowhere.  Either everyone had been deaf to the intercom announcement, or no one had been logical enough to follow Q’s reasoning to a sensible end – or, at least, an end in which Gareth Mallory was alive in any way.  If there was anyone who’d taken Q’s advice to heart, Gareth hadn’t met them yet, and he was fairly certain that he’d be dead by the end of today.

Or worse: wishing he was dead.  Q had made it clear that he’d hold a grudge against anyone who harmed Eigengrau’s leader, but it was easier to forget that part, even for those who saw the usefulness in keeping the valuable information Mallory held intact.  Gareth was not particularly looking forward to finding out whether his training was still ingrained enough for him to keep his mouth shut under torture.

Skidding around a corner and down another hall, Gareth holstered his gun if only to make running a bit easier.  Hands free, he pumped them at his sides, already feeling the burning in his legs and lungs as his body reached for that next erg of speed.  If he could just get a bit further ahead in this bloody maze-!

A bullet winged off the wall just behind him.  Usually a very self-controlled man, Gareth decided that now was the perfect time to be a bit unprofessional, and yelled “ _Hell_!” more or less at the top of his lungs.  It didn’t help at all, but it felt a bit nice, and if he was going to be shot soon, he wanted at least a tiny taste of happiness somewhere in his recent recollection.  He managed to pivot on his right foot as he made his next turn, spinning himself so that his back slapped against the wall around the corner.  He immediately had his gun drawn, and wasted only two exact heartbeats bracing himself before he twisted just enough to get off a shot back the way he’d just come.  This time, there was the choked off scream of someone getting a hole put in them.  Mallory bared his teeth in a very uncouth snarl and gave vent to a celebratory noise before he realized that he now had two bullets left, and could hear more than two people thundering down the hall after him.  “I am so fucking done with this shit,” he grumbled resignedly, then took off running again.

He’d been on the move basically since he’d split off from Ianto Jones yesterday night, which already felt like a lifetime ago.  Maybe he’d have been able to hide out somewhere, but since he’d started by basically baiting the enemy, he’d lost his opportunity to find a nice safe anonymous hole to hide in, and now he was almost wishing he had hid.  True, he’d wanted to give Jones a head start, but it was harder to think selfless thoughts now that he’d been awake for nearly fifteen hours and his body was screaming for rest, water, and food all at once.  The literal highlight of his day had been three hours ago when he’d found enough peace and quiet to take a piss and then fall into one of the shallowest sleeps of his life.  His watch said that he’d only been asleep for a paltry thirty minutes before he heard a door being kicked in, and then he had to move again.  It was almost pathetic how much he hated his watch now for _only_ telling the time.

Dehydration was getting to him; the next turn saw him slewing into the far wall, and for a moment his vision got a bit hazy.  He’d trained in some pretty horrific conditions back in the day, but having his own body giving out on him never ceased to be frustrating and terrifying.  Blinking hard and shaking his head, Mallory took off again, only to have to stop, turn around, and fire off another shot to keep his pursuers back.  One more bullet left.  At least he’d heard a body drop with his penultimate bullet, before circumstances had necessitated he start moving again.  He was in a pretty empty part of Eigengrau now, far from any employee living quarters, but he’d taken a few turns he hadn’t meant to, and he had the sickening sense that he’d actually turned more towards…

The Hounds’ sleeping quarters.  A broad-shouldered figure stepped out of the shadows ahead of Mallory, cutting off that direction of escape.  Even if Mallory hadn’t realized where he was (the Hounds' designated quarters were spread out into four ‘blocks,’ because keeping them all bunched together led to homicide, and this was Block A), he’d have recognized the dull glint of the emergency lighting off the metal of a collar.  “Damn,” Mallory gasped, skidding to a halt that made his legs scream with the effort.  This wasn’t a small agent either – not that the smaller ones were any less dangerous, but Mallory didn’t like his chances against the broad-shouldered silhouette ahead of him.  Using some of the momentum still tugging at his body, Mallory let his gun swing forward, squeezing off a bullet almost before he’d gotten it lined up.  Mallory immediately cursed his hurry, but despite rushing, he would have hit his target had not the man lunged to the side with almost impossible speed.  One of the older Hounds then; newer high-Pass agents simply weren’t that fast.  Mallory felt his chances sinking right down to his shoes even as he lifted and aimed again more carefully, while the target ahead of him was still recovering his footing.

But when Mallory pulled the trigger, all he got was a hollow click.  He looked at the weapon stupidly for a moment, before finally sighing, “Well, shit.”

There were still more footsteps catching up like a hailstorm behind him, but surprisingly, the figure ahead hadn’t pressed the attack.  “You’re out of bullets.”  Trevelyan’s voice; usually, 006 was as jovial as a fox in a henhouse, but right now he sounded only mildly wry.

“I might have another clip,” Mallory pointed out, already trying – and failing – to think of a good way out of this.  He suddenly wasn’t sure which option he preferred: death at the hands of the hooligans behind him, who were mostly random traitors and a few very green Hounds – or death at the hands of 006, who had at one point in his history taken three days to kill a man.

He wasn’t prepared, however, for Alec’s body to turn broadside to him, as if preparing to run the other way.  “If you’ve got another clip, then you’d better bloody load it – or do you plan to use that gun as a blunt-force instrument on those bastards behind you?” Alec barked.  When Mallory didn’t immediately reload (pretty much answering the question), the high-Pass agent further surprised M by beckoning and growing more commanding, “Get your arse in gear, Mallory!”

Clearly, Trevelyan meant for Gareth to follow him, and while that sounded like possibly the most ludicrous thing M had ever heard… he also wasn’t spoiled for choice.  When the roaring of voices behind him abruptly intensified with nearness, Mallory’s legs moved on impulse, and he found himself running in 006’s direction.  He was still smart enough to brace himself for a surprise attack, but before he had even drawn close enough for Trevelyan to try something, the agent – with an approving nod – had taken off, too, leading the way.

“Why the… hell…” Mallory panted, “…are you-?”

Alec turned his head, grinning roguishly as he interrupted teasingly, “Were you _asleep_ when Q gave his little speech, Mallory?”

The agent was definitely fresher than Mallory was, and it was an effort to keep up with him, but Mallory was a tough man.  Dragging in air in steady but greedy mouthfuls, he still managed to get out between breaths, “No…  Just surprised… that you gave a damn.”

Abruptly slowing so that he dropped back to Mallory’s side, Alec gave the other man’s shoulder a push, sending them both turning sharply down a narrow corridor that Mallory hadn’t seen.  He didn’t know this part of the building very well – but obviously Alec did.  Then again, Alec lived on Block A.  “Well, I don’t know if I give a damn about you personally,” Alec allowed, as if he were admitting to nothing so much as preferring cherries over strawberries on his ice-cream, “but Q gave a pretty good argument, so I figured, what the hell?  I can always kill you later if things don’t work out.”

“How… reassuring.”

“Glad you think so,” Alec replied cheerily, and pulled ahead again.

Alec was a good three paces ahead when Mallory was suddenly blindsided by a person juggernauting out of an adjoining room, but the head of Eigengrau had barely crashed into the floor before he felt the weight ripped off him.  He lay on his back and panted, momentarily just watching as Alec dragged off a young collared woman and quietly incapacitated her with a precise blow to her jaw.  Her head snapped back and she went limp, still breathing.  Alec dropped her and then ambled back over to Mallory as if nothing had happened, extending a hand down to him.  Gareth eyed the hand warily, then eyed the smiling face it was attached to just as warily, before also reading the challenge in Trevelyan’s green eyes.  “Break a leg there, Mallory?” Alec teased, in a tone that said, ‘ _Are you really too cowardly to take my hand_?’

In response, Gareth glared a little and swept an arm up to clasp Alec’s forearm.  It was nice to have assistance getting to his feet, 006’s strength making up for the exhaustion in M’s legs.  M looked warily at the younger Hound who had just attacked him, and then asked steadily, “Did you know that she was there?”

“I might have,” Alec shrugged, “But going in after her felt like a waste of time.  Much easier to draw her out with good bait.”  Trevelyan had the audacity to clap Mallory on the shoulder, to which the ‘bait’ in question raised two displeased eyebrows.

“How did you know she wasn’t armed?” Gareth pressed, even as Trevelyan got moving again and he followed.  They must have lost their pursuit with that last turn, as the hubbub behind them was dying away.

“I didn’t,” the high-Pass agent tossed back blithely, then looked back and winked, “But I figured that if you couldn’t handle yourself for at the three seconds it took me to get to you, then you don’t deserve to be head of Eigengrau.”

The pace they were setting was much more manageable: a steady lope instead of an all-out sprint.  It made it easier to catch his breath, but Gareth still didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he did it was to say in a deadpan voice, “I’m starting to see why Harkness likes you.”

Alec chuckled throatily.

Gareth went on, sincerely bemused, “And I’m starting to wonder how Bond hasn’t shot you in the face yet.”

Alec’s laughter became louder, and either the agent knew that no one was near enough to hear and hone in on the sound – or he knew that anyone with half a brain would hear him laughing and run the other way.  Alec was a smug bastard, quick with a smile and prone to joking, but that was just a case of some very good sheep’s clothing over a very dangerous wolf.

~^~

“I don’t know if they’re happy with me,” Eggsy grunted, looking down at his phone after the conversation he’d just had, “but they believe me.”  He turned it off, slipped the mobile back into a pocket, and turned back to Agent 005.  “And we’re in luck – they’re not to the chopper yet, save a skeleton crew that’s keeping the place secure.  The Quartermaster’s talk has made a right mess of things, though, and the main group has been running into a bit of trouble.”

Hart had been leaning against the wall behind him with no particular expression whatsoever on his face.  Now, it cracked into a pleased smile.  That smile – always so small and brief – was starting to _do_ things to Eggsy, to say nothing about Harry’s occasional compliments.  “I’d imagined that would be the case.  That was well done, Eggsy.”

Perhaps in an effort to deflect the sincerity in Harry’s tone, Eggsy teased back wryly, “You’re congratulating me on lying, you know.  That’s supposed to be a bad thing, innit?”

“Not in my world,” Harry corrected him lightly, pushing away from the wall and clasping Eggsy’s shoulder briefly as he walked past him.  It felt natural to pivot and follow, something in Harry’s determined, unhesitant stride magnetizing.

Eggsy’s first call to Moran hadn’t actually got through – only on the second try did the man answer, and that in and of itself was proof that things weren’t going quite as planned for C and his men.  Moran had sounded much like he usually did, but Eggsy, who was familiar with how unflappable the assassin was, could pick out the little shifts in Moran’s voice.  “I think Moran’s scared,” Eggsy opined after they’d walked in silence for a stretch, headed for Eggsy’s helicopter.  He’d told Harry how he’d disabled the rest (while another operative had done the same with the boats), and while Eggsy felt frustrated and guilty about it, Harry had accepted that information without surprise or judgment.  Eggsy wrinkled his nose and amended, “Or at close to scared as that lizard gets.”

“I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Moran.  What’s he like?” Harry asked, seemingly idly.

Huffing out a breath and then casting back in his memory, Eggsy began to describe haltingly, “He’s like…  Well, he’s a right bastard for one, just in general.”  That didn’t seem very specific, and Harry had flicked an expectant glance his way, so Eggsy tried for more pertinent details, “He’s fast and quick – a fighter with more than just training.  He’s got experience.  And he’s one cold sonofabitch.”

“Language,” Harry said like it was a reflex.

Eggsy briefly considered telling Harry that he could just go stuff his ‘language’ where the sun didn’t shine, but figured that it wouldn’t do to get into an argument with a man who could take him out… but who was choosing to help him out instead.  So Eggsy went back to his description and did, indeed, try to lean more towards Harry’s kind of speaking, “I can see why Moran is C’s second-in-command, and even if he had a gun pointed to his head, I don’t think that he’d break or do anything stupid.  I saw him in a few fights, and it was scary stuff, but always quick.”

“He doesn’t drag out a fight just for the sake of it?”

“Nope,” Eggsy concurred, then seemed to hit upon a realization.  It was as if he’d walked right up to it, but somehow hadn’t seen it until he was right on top of it, so he said with quiet surprise, “He’s high-Pass, isn’t he?”

Harry looked to be biting the inside of his cheek, thoughtful and frowning, and he didn’t respond right away.  When he did, however, he looked troubled.  But he also nodded.  “Before you and I had our initial altercation in the hallway, I listened in to your discussion with Moran, and drew a few conclusions myself, but I didn’t have enough information.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Eggsy shook his head, trotting a little to catch up when Harry’s slightly longer strides pulled him ahead.  Eggsy wanted to see the older man’s face, which was now subtly twisted with unease.  “Sybil’s supposed to catch all of you lot.  No offense.”

“No offense taken,” Harry brushed that aside easily, eyes still focused ahead of them.  At first, Eggsy thought they were looking at the middle distance, but then he noted the way that they were always roving – checking out every little detail of what was ahead of them.  Belatedly Eggsy realized that he should be doing the same, and with an embarrassed flush he got himself to focus – he turned to watch behind them a bit more, trusting his peripheral vision of Harry to keep him from walking into things despite his frequent backward glances.  When he did glance forward next, he saw Harry looking back at him out of the corner of one eye.  There was a look of approval on the older man’s face.

“I don’t have an explanation for Moran,” Harry went on, “but I find it hard to believe that even C himself has a Psychopass below one-hundred.  You can’t instigate a situation like this without being high-Pass, not with all of the opportunity for killing that C has expressly created and encouraged.  By all rights, Sybil should have noticed.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy agreed, but couldn’t add anything to that.  It pretty much summed up his thoughts.  He did add, however, after another sweeping glance revealed nothing on their tail, “I think Moran deserves to be here more than you do.”

Harry didn’t answer, but Eggsy thought he saw the man miss a step before recovering like a cat.

~^~

Q and Bond were back in the rec-room where James had first offered to be dangerous not _to_ Q – but _for_ Q.  They’d both realized that it was wisest if they kept moving, even if they had a lot of things to discuss, and even now that they’d stopped running, their debate was continuing at a rapid pace.  Ostensibly, they’d stopped so that they could rehydrate and conserve their strength a little, but in reality they didn’t want their arguing to make them miss something dangerous.  Here, in the rec-room, James was able to block off the doors and make the place defensible, allowing them to bicker back and forth without distractions.

How were they to reconcile their two views?  Q wanted to keep people safe from killers and terrorists; James wanted to be free.  Both of them wanted human beings to be treated as human beings, though, and they both agreed that a collar with a kill-switch wasn’t that.  But what about Smartblood?  Where did necessity and privacy intersect and destroy one another?

The discussion reached a lull and Q sat back against the mirror from earlier, sipping pensively from a water-bottle and marveling at the fact that they were still _talking_.  After all, 007 was capable of getting his points across a lot more physically if he wanted to, yet there the man was: sitting across from Q, a body’s-length away, doing nothing but wait for Q to drink his fill and pick up the argument again.  He wore the look of a man who was patient enough to wait for the answer he wanted – an ambush predator, capable of remaining motionless for hours until something he wanted walked within reach.  Q was determined to outlast him, but he nonetheless marveled at the fact that James hadn’t resorted to violence to force Q’s agreement.  Q was a great debater, but he wouldn’t have lasted long against Bond’s arsenal of fists and guns and knives.  The agent was well-armed now, having scavenged what he needed before they left the guard station.  Two guns holstered on either side of his ribcage; two knives that Q could see, stuck through Bond’s belt; probably more knives that Q couldn’t see, well concealed.  It was eerie to realize how dangerous James was, and yet to see him playing so docilely.

“Do you believe that I’ll start murdering people as soon as I escape Eigengrau?” James asked, out of the blue.  His tone was calm and considerate, neither challenging nor angry.  The blue of his eyes may as well have been the unbroken shell of a summer sky.

“No,” Q replied, only realizing that he believed it after he’d said it.  He frowned at the impulsive nature of his own mouth and then explained, “But I’ve only known you for a short while.”

“And what do you think of me?”

“That you’re dangerous, but that you follow a code.”

“And does that code make me more or less dangerous?”

“Both,” was the answer that fell naturally off Q’s tongue.  He saw interest flicker in 007’s eyes before it was expertly hidden away, like everything else.  James bent one knee up so that he could clasp his rugged, scarred hands around it, looking relaxed but interested.

Realizing that he was close to admitting that, no, he didn’t think 007 was as dangerous to society as people thought he was, Q changed tactics and said, “I have to worry about more than just you.  If I let you get away, what about the others?  What about Root?  What about Hart?  What about Hannibal?  Hell, Hannibal has a code, too – but they tell me that his code allows for him to kill and eat _rude_ people.”

James, of course, had an answer to that, capturing Q in the blue of his eyes and holding him there while his words slipped in like a stiletto through the ribs of Q’s argument, “What about Sherlock?”

“Don’t bring him into this,” Q bristled.

“He’s already in this, Q.  Literally.”

Making a sound of hurt frustration, Q turned his head away, pressing his lips together lest something stupid come out.  It didn’t help that his wounds were beginning to ache, a sensation that he’d pushed to the back of his mind while they were moving, but now was crowding forward again for his attention.  Q wanted an answer to all of this so badly – it wasn’t even that he opposed everything that James was saying, and now his pain and his frustration combined, making it suddenly very tempting to cry.  Q drew up his knees even though it made his torso hurt, folding his arms atop them.  “This would be easier if I despised you,” Q found himself saying miserably, proof positive that he shouldn’t have let his mouth open.  Only a bit later did he realize that he was talking into the jacket that he’d borrowed from James, which still smelled like the agent, was still warm like him.  It only confused Q further.

Surprisingly, instead of answering, James paused a moment in silence and then stood.  Q fancied that the agent walked with the same careful slowness of a rancher approaching a yearling foal, not quite broken and still quite skittish.  Q didn’t have it in him to move away even as James dropped down into a crouch at his side, and put a hand on Q’s right shoulder.  The man’s eyes were surprisingly understanding, and when he spoke he sounded almost sympathetic, “No, it wouldn’t.  If you despised me, I’d have killed you by now.”

Maybe ‘sympathetic’ was the wrong word…  “Has anyone ever told you that your bedside manner is absolutely appalling?”

“Most people are more interested in my manner _in_ bed than beside it,” James sallied back, but fortunately didn’t seem interested in pursuing the sexual innuendo.  He tapped Q’s shoulder lightly.  “You need more pain-meds, and I need to look at your shoulder again to make sure you’re not getting an infection.”

Q remained with the lower half of his face pressed against his arms, looking moodily forward.  His stomach was starting to realize that all Q had given it was water, and he could feel it gnawing at him, making him petty, so he mumbled into his borrowed sleeves, “I should refuse to cooperate, just to be an arse.  It would be well-deserved payback for all the times _you’ve_ been an arse.”

“I’m amused by the fact that you think your cooperation is necessary,” James replied with just the thinnest edge of threat in his otherwise pleasant voice, proving that he was getting a bit annoyed.  Despite that, however, he didn’t make any forceful overtures when Q didn’t move.  Suddenly morbidly (or perhaps suicidally) curious, Q continued to hold his position, for all the world pretending that there wasn’t a killer crouched to his right, even though the entirety of Q’s senses were focused on exactly that.  When, after nearly a minute, 007’s hand moved, Q immediately went as tense as a piano wire in preparation for expected trouble – but all that James did was burrow his fingers in the hair at the back of Q’s head, not even gripping but instead carding through.  What tugs there were to Q’s scalp were gentle.  Almost pleasant.

After three such caresses, James cocked his head and asked, calmly, “Do you _want_ me to force you?”

‘ _That’s a stupid question_ ,’ Q meant to scoff, but somehow he opened his mouth, sucked in a breath… and then closed his mouth again, for reasons he didn’t understand.  “Everything already feels like it’s happening without my permission,” he said instead, after a pause.  He wasn’t sure if it was hunger making him maudlin, or the pain making him unreasonable, or the steady pressure of fear up until now making him reckless.  Either way, he found that his fear of 007 was ebbing, and he… and he didn’t know what was rising to fill its place.

James’s head tilted slightly, considering, and his eyes continued to watch the movements of his own hand as it spread fingers through Q’s thick dark hair once again.  “You can control this,” he said after a beat, “You choose whether or not to _give_ me control.  I don’t want to take it.”

The only reason Q twisted his head to look was because that last sentence struck him as unexpectedly sincere.  It wasn’t fervent, or overemphasized like a salesman trying too hard to dress up a lie and make it pretty.  Instead, it was said with the same factual manner that Bond had used to describe his own nature: ‘ _I’m a Hound, I’m good at violence, and I don’t want to take control away from you_.’  When Q’s surprised, incredulous gaze sought Bond’s eyes, the agent’s blue gaze met his frankly and without reservation, reflecting nothing more or less than what Q had heard in his voice.  Bond meant what he said, strange as it seemed.

Q’s throat was suddenly a bit dry.  He opened his mouth to wet his lips, and was exquisitely aware of how 007 unabashedly watched the path of his tongue.  “How-?”  Q started, stopped, then forced himself to start again and this time keep going before he could think better of it, “How would that work?”

“You have your skills, I have mine.  I let you use your skills earlier today, and didn’t interfere,” James seemed happy to explain, although his voice got a bit lower and huskier as he let his palm span the back of Q’s skull, thumb pressing behind Q’s ear and massaging away the budding point of a headache that Q had almost not noticed, “Now, you could let me use _my_ skills – without interfering.”

Q didn’t know what he was getting into, but he desperately wanted an excuse to detach himself from everything.  He felt like a rock-climber that had been clinging to a cliff-face for hours, and he wanted to let go without plummeting to his death.  When he’d spoken to everyone over the intercom, he’d taken responsibility for so much more than he’d planned to, and it was starting to sink in like acid through bone.  Bond, it seemed, was promising temporary relief.  

Eyes fluttering briefly closed, Q sank into the warmth of Bond’s hand for a moment before recalling that that same hand had killed Raoul Silva just hours ago.  Q’s eyes snapped open, and he tried to collect at least some modicum of common sense… even if he refused to back away entirely.  “Will you stop if I say no?” he demanded.  His voice had gotten thin and breathy without him noticing.

“Did I listen to your hand on my throat last night?”

Q rolled a gimlet look James’s way, partially because the reminder made his stomach do funny things that had nothing to do with hunger (at least not the kind of hunger fed by food), and partially because the man refused to give straight answers.  “Stop answering questions with questions.”

“Fine.”  Bond rolled his eyes, but his mouth was starting to curl upwards at the sides.  “Yes.  If I wanted to railroad you entirely, I wouldn’t be asking to do it – I’d have done it already.  So I’ll listen if you tell me to stop.” The forthrightness was strangely refreshing, and once again Q was struck by how juxtaposed different parts of 007 were: he could be as cagy and shady as hell, or he could say absolutely everything as if reading from the book of his mind, no redactions.  Q was still pondering that when James’s hand curled in the collar of his jacket, giving it a little tug.  “So – what’s your answer?”

“Tell me what you’ll do if I say yes.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” James admitted with a shrug, still exquisitely, unapologetically frank.  He did try, however, to elaborate after Q’s lips pursed and his eyebrows lowered pugnaciously, “I’ll check your shoulder, check your ribs.  Probably make you take twice as much of the painkillers, because that first dose obviously didn’t do its job.  I might sit still with you for another half-hour, just so I know you’ll be ready to move again when the time comes.”

It all sounded… so logical.  And so simple.  It forced Q to ask, “What do you get out of this?”

The answer came surprisingly quickly: “Control.”  Before Q could open his mouth to ask for clarification, James lifted a hand to tug back the neck of his own pullover.  The Hound’s collar, previously well hidden, glinted with a dull and evil gleam.  “Something that’s in rather short supply for me,” James finished with a completely humorless half-smile.

Somehow, that made the answer easy, as all of the pieces – what James wanted now, what James had been arguing about for the past hour – slotted into place.  “Okay then,” Q found himself whispering, finding a strange peace within the answer, “Yes.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yaaaay, some of the pairings are getting a bit more pronounced! ^_^ And the plot thickens, because clearly Sybil isn't doing her job...


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q has given over control to a Hound of Eigengrau. Now to see what 007 will do with that gift...
> 
> If this chapter had a name, it would be "Blasphemy in a Holy Place"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE FINALLY HAVE SNOW HERE OH MY GOODNESS *runs off into the Canadian version of cocaine* *runs back to hit 'post'*

~^~

Surprise flashed across 007’s face, then something akin to ravenousness; the changes to his expression were subtle, but it was like his eyes suddenly glowed with new life in the dimness.  Q found himself entranced in that freshly birthed fire.  Pleasantly lost, Q didn’t struggle when James reached around to grab both of his lapels, standing then and dragging Q inexorably up with him.  Already Q could feel how 007’s strength was taking all choice away – but at the same time, Q was aware in a giddy sort of way that he’d allowed this.  Asked for this, almost.  He had to admit, though, getting to his feet was a helluva lot easier with James taking the weight.  Q’s abused muscles barely protested.

Q’s breath caught in his throat as he found himself nearly standing on Bond’s toes, positioned close enough to the other man that he could feel his heat and memorize the way James's pullover stretched across his broad chest with every movement of muscle.  The nearness couldn’t be anything but intentional – the same went for the way James paused that way, just holding them suspended in stillness with Q resisting the urge to lift his eyes and see what look was on Bond’s face.

Moving on a schedule that only James knew, 007 suddenly moved them.  Q stumbled, but it didn’t seem to be 007’s intent to unbalance him, because the man’s grip never wavered and kept Q’s balance for him.  It was like moving with a dancer, and almost before he knew it, Q found a bench against the back of his knees as 007 forced him firmly down.  Speaking felt like blasphemy in a holy place, so he said nothing, only waited with a buzzing expectation as James stood in front of him like a god to pray to.

“Are you afraid of me, Q?” Bond asked with only mild curiosity in his voice, nothing more.  He stood with his hands at his sides, open and empty, feet braced apart as if for a fight – and suddenly Q wondered if James was always this way.  If Eigengrau had _made_ him this way.

Tired, and sagging where he sat, Q tipped his head back slowly, eyes following the powerful, darkly-clad lines of Bond’s body.  Up his torso, along his breastbone, tanned neck to handsomely intense face.  “Yes,” Q answered quietly, then added, “But not enough.”

The flash of surprise came back, just for a heartbeat, this time mingling with sudden pleasure.

Because James Bond didn’t kneel – perhaps 007, Hound of Eigengrau did, but not the James Q was looking at in this moment – he dragged up another bench, sitting down right across from Q.  It put them on even footing again, but Q still felt somehow overwhelmed, if only by James’s tangible certainty as scarred hands reached forward.  They found either side of Q’s jacket-collar again, and this time James looked at it consideringly, cocking his head and smirking as he opined idly, “I rather like this on you.”  He pushed it back, so that it slid off Q’s shoulders, leaving the Quartermaster suddenly feeling the chill again.

Shivering, Q retorted cautiously, “Then why are you taking it off?”

James’s smirk grew, and the man leaned forward until Q felt the man’s stubbled jaw brush his cheek.  “Because I like it better _off_ you.”  Q sucked in a breath, freezing, but thankfully James drew back; his smile was still cheeky, but it was cautious, too.  “I think there’s a lot I’d like better off you, but that’s a talk for another day.  Yes?”

Q’s voice shook, but he was able to answer as Bond withdrew, “Yes,” and the racing of his heart once again subsided to a more manageable level.  James was keeping him on edge – no doubt purposefully – but only as close to that edge as was exciting, not terrifying.

“Another day then,” Bond agreed, and Q let out a relieved sigh even as he allowed himself to be divested of the jacket entirely.  James’s hand next caught Q’s forearm, however, drawing it forward to show the bandaged left wrist.  He added more soberly, “Perhaps when you’re less damaged.”  Q wanted to protest against that, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to say – perhaps that he wasn’t some piece of broken crockery, perhaps to correct Bond’s priorities and remind him that the real reason they shouldn’t have sex was because they were living in a horror movie.  It became a moot point, because James shushed him anyway.  Q subsided without a fight, curious again to see what would come next, and tolerated his hand in Bond’s.  The older man’s palm was rough and calloused, but warm and conscientious of the fine bones and joints it held.  Q watched with a mixture of fear and fascination as James slid one hand to grip Q’s elbow, the other remaining on Q’s hand, and in that fashion gently tested Q’s range of motion.  Q hissed as the burns pulled, but 007 wasn’t in this to be a sadist – merely to see where Q’s limits were.

Figuratively as well as literally.

Efficient as a machine, James moved on, and Q pulled in one faster, deeper breath as the hand on his hand switched to cup his shoulder, dismissing the first injury and coming dangerously close to the next one.  Q would have pulled back, but he had indeed given control over to 007, because the other hand still had his elbow trapped, and the grip tightened.  The scrub-top Q was wearing hid the graze between his neck and left shoulder, but for a moment, James just sat as he was, one thumb rubbing the point of Q’s shoulder and the other resting over the blue veins in the crook of his arm.  James seem utterly absorbed with these two small tasks, and after a moment of taut alertness, Q found himself relaxing, content to live between these two touches as well.

In hindsight, 007 was probably registering Q’s pulse, and only spoke up when he felt it slow down, “Take your shirt off, Q.”

Again the fear tried to overtake the anticipation and anxiety, like carbonation rising to the top of a drink in a fizzing mass.  Q clenched his teeth, feeling the urge to draw back but focusing on the fact that 007 hadn’t moved.  The order was hanging there, waiting, but instead of instantly enforcing it, James was just watching Q with those ferociously blue – but inhumanly calm – eyes.  Maybe it was that look, that reassurance that James was judging what every action was doing to Q, that had Q clearing his throat, tipping his chin proudly, and saying breathlessly, “You do it.”

Bond’s eyes sparked, like heat-lightning across the belly of a cloud; the look transformed into a small, intrigued smile.  “You’re a bossy little thing, aren’t you?” he crooned lowly.  Q held his breath, not lessening the challenge in his eyes, waiting to see how the Hound would take it.  The grin grew a bit wilder, like a fox peering out of a deep, fey wood.  “You’re lucky that you give such good orders-”  James leaned suddenly forward, and Q once again found the man talking against his ear, this time close enough to feel the warmth of his breath, smell the musky scent of sweat that clung to James’s hairline.  “-Or I’d tell you to shove it up your arse.”

It was getting increasingly hard to tell when James was threatening him and coming on to him.  Q shivered at the words hissed delicately against the shell of his ear, but only twitched a little as James – perhaps purposefully – brushed his rough cheek against Q’s as he retreated.  It was like being licked by a lion in passing.  As 007 sat back, however, his hands did indeed move to the hem of his Quartermaster’s shirt, and it really sank in, ‘ _This is happening_.’

Q squeaked despite himself as the inexorable upward motion prompted him to lift his arms – which hurt.  No sooner did the noise escape him, however, than James had one arm on his left elbow again and was guiding the motion.  Q still almost lost his glasses, but at least he hadn’t been swallowed up by pain by the time he was all bare skin from the waist up.  As Q straightened out his glasses, 007 got up and disappeared out of his range of vision, but only to return a few moments later with the familiar bottle of painkiller and one of their bottles of water.  As promised, he handed Q more of the former than before, and after a moment of wary hesitation, Q gave in and took them.  It was pretty obvious by now that 007 could think up more creative ways of doing Q in than making him overdose on pain meds – and he would have done it already if he was all that interested.  Q swallowed the dose and hoped they kicked in quickly, because most of his left side was killing him.

Bond whistled past his teeth, sitting down across from Q again and inspecting the younger man before him.  “You really are a right mess now, aren’t you?”

“You flatter me,” Q deadpanned, unimpressed.

James glanced up, and his grin was so charming that Q’s heart sped up.  “You’re a _pretty_ mess,” the agent clarified, and now the flattery was real.  In fact, if Q didn’t know better, he’d say that James rather liked the bruises that had now bloomed into full color along Q’s belly and ribs.  They were stark enough against Q’s naturally pale skin that they were visible even in the shadows.  

When Bond reached for him next, it was a strangely gentle gesture, slow and easy until just the backs of the agent’s fingers brushed Q’s belly.  Q’s abdominal muscles contracted shyly at the contact – which caused a renewed ache – but when James’s hand brushed lightly upwards instead of downwards to forbidden territory, Q found himself relaxing.  One would think that James was lightly stroking the fur of a day-old kitten instead of a hapless, slightly battered Quartermaster, and being treated with such light hands was almost breathtaking.  These were battle-tested, killing hands, but now their touch was moth-light.  Q barely felt them skimming up from his navel to his chest, and while Q wasn’t exactly as muscular as a Hound, he was proud to say that he was lean – not an inch of fat on him.  He even fancied that James noticed, as the man unfurled his fingers a bit more, so that instead of blunt fingernails skimming Q’s skin there was finally the pads of fingertips branching out across his ribs.

There were bruises there, of course, but James kept his touch so delicate that Q barely felt a twinge.  “You really did get the shit kicked out of you,” James opined without any particular inflection.  For a man like him, of course, these were probably more like love-taps than injuries, and Q shifted where he sat.  He was suddenly self-conscious of his own pain.  James noticed.  “What is it?”

Not wanting to meet keen blue eyes, Q fixed his eyes downwards, watching Bond’s hand instead.  It had returned to his center of mass, fingertips just pressing on his solar plexus in an absentminded sort of way.  “I was just thinking…” Q slowly tasted his words, pressing them against the back of his teeth and then continuing before he could ask himself why he was answering at all, “…About how often you’ve seen wounds like this – _made_ wounds like this – without even blinking.  I stabbed Agent 004 in the neck, and it barely slowed him down.  This-”  Q dipped his chin just a bit lower, towards himself, “-can hardly be that exciting to you.”

“You don’t think I find this exciting?”  Suddenly Bond’s hand was rising again, and there was somehow more intent in his movements now.  The line of Q’s torso was once again followed, but this time when Bond’s hand splayed, it left his palm pressed against the side of Q’s chest, above his dancing heart.  One of James’s fingers was ghosting along the edge of Q’s left nipple, and the boffin abruptly found himself looking away to avoid a blush – which meant meeting 007’s eyes again.  Most colors were indistinct with only the emergency lighting to cast a glow on things, but somehow he could still see the color of the agent’s eyes, and it was like that shade of blue was the only color in existence.  “Q, you have to understand something,” James said soberly, “It’s a lot harder than you think for a man like me to find someone in Eigengrau who’ll to let me touch them-”  James’s hand strayed, and Q had to curl his toes up in his shoes so as not to react to calloused fingertips skimming over his nipple, then drifting unexpectedly into safer territory to trace the line of Q’s clavicle to the hollow of his throat.   “-Much less explore them.”

It took Q a dazed moment – his slow thoughts perhaps due to adrenaline, perhaps to hunger and weariness, and perhaps to the simple fact that 007 was damn distracting – to realize that James really meant it.  Still meeting those blue eyes, Q beetled his brow a little, looking for signs that James was just stringing him along.  He couldn’t find any such clues, however, and what was more, he couldn’t see a motive.  There was no purpose to Bond giving that information away, unless it was simply truthful, in which case this was a whole new facet to the man that Q hadn’t considered.  Just as Q was pondering the bewildering possibility of a touch-starved agent, James went on, “If you ask around for gossip, you’ll hear over and over again that we agents seduce our Handlers – but that’s because they’re the only ones desensitized enough to think that fucking us might be something that they can survive.”

“Everyone else is terrified of you,” Q realized.  He suddenly found himself reviewing all of the Handlers that he’d met.  Had there been a glint of daring in their eyes?  Some small part of their personality that tended towards suicidal, or made them an adrenalin-junky – or otherwise more likely to say ‘ _Bring it on’_ instead of fainting at a Hound’s sexual advances?

James nodded, once again treating all of this like a simple, normal fact.  “I like a little fear,” he admitted, mouth quirking up at once side, and Q’s breath hitched as Bond’s thumb pressed down into the hollow of his throat – then relaxed the pressure as the man continued “But I don’t get off on pure terror being the predominant emotion.”

“So, basically,” Q tried, throat a bit dry, “Handlers are the only people stupid enough to fuck you?”

“Careful who you call stupid, Q,” Bond chided, but he was definitely smiling now, “because even my past Handlers haven’t been too keen on what I’m doing to you just now.”  As if to emphasize his point, James’s fingers flexed, and Q realized quite without warning that the agent was holding his throat and had been for at least the last few sentences.  It was such a gentle grip, and he’d been getting s0 desensitized to the touches that it had snuck up on him unawares.

“Easy, Q,” James hushed when Q’s breathing picked up rapidly.  The fingers around Q’s throat drifted back to his left shoulder where they were benign once again.  Q’s hands had lifted at some point, too (they’d been resting on the bench to either side of him until now), and both James and Q tilted their heads to look.  The Quartermaster’s long, skillful fingers were halfway between them and reaching James’s way – and Q froze because he knew where they’d been headed.  Apparently James did, too.  The Hound flicked his eyes back up to meet Q’s and he raised one eyebrow, noting, “You’re also the only one who has the gall to go for _my_ throat.”

Q could feel his cheeks and ears heating, and quickly lowered his hand back down again, until both were anchoring him to the bench on either side, grip tight.  He asked stiffly, embarrassed, “Are you fishing for an apology?”

“God, no,” was the unexpected reply.  With his right hand still on Q’s shoulder, James lifted his left without further ado and gently nudged Q’s jaw, pushing it authoritatively to the side.  The agent went on as he inspected Q’s stitches closely, “Weren’t you listening?  You’re a rare catch, Q.  You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”  James’s smile became wry, and he added ruefully and in a lower register that picked up more of the gravel than the honey in his voice, “Except perhaps threatening to hunt me down with those fucking nanites in my blood.”

 Sighing and lifting his hand again – this time to push up under his glasses and rub at his eyes – Q admitted in a voice precariously close to a whine, “I don’t think I have it in me to discuss that with you right now.”

Surprisingly, the show of weakness didn’t beget trouble.  “Fine by me.  So long as you know we’re going to talk about it later,” James allowed, and when Q gave a weary but accepting nod, the agent actually dropped the subject.  As promised, he was stopping when Q said no – which surprised Q enough that he dropped his hand and blinked his eyes open again to just stare stupidly for a long moment.  Bond pretended not to notice, demurring from making eye contact, but his mouth had kicked upwards at one side.

Things were pretty quiet after that, as if James had made his point and was now content to let it sink in.  Q, for his part, really did have a lot to digest – but was also sincerely worn out.  The day wasn’t even over yet, and already he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and fall instantly asleep.  Of course, whenever he thought of ‘bed,’ he thought of the last bed he’d been in, and how he’d ended up sharing it with a certain high-Pass agent.  That was enough to wake Q up again, nerve endings alight, even as 007 shifted his focus from Q’s stitches to his bruises.  The first touch to Q’s side had the Quartermaster flinching and swearing inadvertently.

“On further inspection, I think these might be cracked,” James diagnosed with a faint expression that might have been sympathy – or simply a look of inconvenience, “or at least deeply bruised.  There’s nothing to be done about it besides medicating for the pain, though.”

“Bugger all,” Q muttered to himself.

James had to add helpfully, “Of course, the only way to completely knock out the pain would probably mean taking enough medication to just about knock _you_ out.”

“You and your bedside manner are quickly becoming more irritating than the many other people no doubt trying to kill me.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Q,” Bond scolded even as he pressed warm, calloused fingertips to Q’s other side, which at least seemed more intact.  Q just gave the man a gimlet look.  He didn’t say anything else, however, and it felt almost like a reward when James handed him his shirt back moments later.  “Here – you can put it back on.  You’re no worse off than last time I checked, so I know you’re not going to keel over and die on me.”

Q grimaced as he tried to get the shirt on over his head, and the movement once again pushed pain through the wall of medicinal numbness.  Thankfully, James helped again, and Q made an effort not to overthink the big, dangerous hands that had now helped both undress and redress him – all without molesting or seriously hurting him.  Still feeling chilled and hungry and worn out, Q huddled in on himself after getting the shirt back on, pointing out pessimistically, “Unless someone helps the process along by putting a bullet in me.”

“That’s why you’ve got me – to prevent unwanted bullet-holes,” James reminded cheerily, even as he reached over and flourished the jacket, settling it around Q’s shoulders again.  The agent didn’t seem to miss it yet in the slightest, which made Q more than a little bit jealous of the man’s pullover – or perhaps just his prodigious body-heat.  Q felt positively cold-blooded.  “Now, come on,” James stood, making impatient beckoning gestures with his hands, “I’ve got an idea that’ll get you warmed up.”

Q, partially curious and partially wary – because the last plan had included sharing a bed, but there were no beds in the rec-room – tugged the jacket closer and hesitated to take the hand stretched out to him.  When he looked distrustfully up from the hand to James’s face, the agent sighed loudly and rolled his eyes with exactly the kind of drama that he’d scolded Q over.

“I already said that I had your best interests at heart,” he grumbled, “and trying to get into your pants right now would be tantamount to fucking in a warzone – which, while exciting, goes against my basic survival instincts.  Now, you said you’d give me control.  Are you saying that you want to take it back now?”

James was frowning, the challenge clear in his tone, and for a moment Q swayed between the two options.  Mostly, he was marveling over the fact that there _were_ options, because this seemed like proof positive that his opinion really did matter.  Perhaps this was why Q, after another heartbeat or two, reached out and folded his hand into Bond’s grip.  Knowing that he could back out at any time – despite 007’s disapproval – gave him the necessary reassurance to _not_ back out, but to trust 007 just a little bit longer.

Dropping Q’s hand after a few steps but trusting him to follow, James led Q to the showers.  This made the boffin nervous all over again until James gestured for him to stay put just outside the room, even as the blond-haired man went in and turn everything on.  C hadn’t meddled with the water supply, and soon the showerheads were all running – and beginning to steam, because 007 had turned them all on hot before retreating.  Like Q, he was still dry, and Q began to realize what he was doing.

“You’re making a sauna for me,” the Quartermaster realized, cautiously delighted.

“For _us_ ,” James corrected wryly, “I’m not selfless enough to let you have all the warm air to yourself.”  Saying that, he chivvied Q over to the lockers and quickly set about unlocking one.  The showers were all located in one big room, with very little separating them from where the rows of lockers were set up.  The steam would soon start rolling in; the heat already was, making Q’s muscles relax appreciatively.

Q was a bit lost in the soothing sound of running water, and it took him a moment to realize that James wasn’t actually opening his own locker with a key, but actually picking the lock to get at someone else’s things.  Q opened his mouth to say how that was wrong, then realized who he was talking to, and gave up with a jaded little exhale and just watched.  Where James had gotten the material for lockpicking, he had no idea.

“Some of these smell pretty rank, but there’s a shirt or two in here that might keep you warmer than that scrub-top,” James said, even as he pulled things out wholesale, locker after locker.  He truly was terrifyingly fast at bypassing locks, making Q appreciate more and more the efforts it took to keep James contained in Eigengrau.  Only once he had a sizeable mound of clothing on the floor did James stop, bend, and gather up his bounty in his arms to drag across the room.  He dumped it all on the floor right outside the showers, creating a pile against the wall.  Two articles of clothing were rescued from the pile, but then James was coaxing Q over again.

“Try these,” James tossed Q what turned out to be a tee and a pullover, the former white and the latter banded with thick, horizontal stripes that might had been reddish or brown in better light, “I doubt they’ll fit, but if the temperature keeps dropping, you won’t freeze as fast.”

“Thanks,” Q said.  He was surprised that he meant it – actually, he was starting to realize just how much thanks he owed this man.  After a moment of hesitation, he eased the jacket back off onto a nearby bench, soon letting the scrub-top follow.  Moving still hurt, but he was getting more used to it.  Either that or James was right, and the extra pain medication was belatedly setting in.  It still felt a bit terrifying to be half-naked in 007’s presence, but after their recent interactions in the rec-room, Q couldn’t claim shyness.  James had already seen this much of him already – and touched him, too.  These must have been someone’s decently fresh clothes, meant for changing into after a workout and shower, because they didn’t smell of anything but detergent as Q slipped into them, first the tee and then the pullover.  Both, predictably, bagged on him.

James was watching with a lopsided, curious smile on his face.  “Well, you look ridiculous.”

“Bastard.”

“You’re welcome.  You also look warmer, if that helps.”

The rest of Bond’s plan became clear when the agent reached over and snagged Q by one overlong sleeve, tugging him closer but then also applying some downward pressure.  It wasn’t until Q was actually sitting on the purloined heap of clothes that he realized 007 had made a nest, softening the concrete floor into something comfortable.  Q switched immediately from halfhearted name-calling to complimenting as he looked about him – at the cushion of cloth, his own new clothing, the warm steam settling in – and admitted, “You really are good at this.”

“At what?  Survival?”  007 seemed briefly caught off-guard by the topic-change.  He was still standing over Q, and now also undergoing a change of attire - removing his bloodied black pullover for a clean grey one that fit like it was actually his.  Q found himself staring at the bewitching rippling of muscles as 007 maneuvered clothing off and on.  It all took seconds, and then he was sitting down as well, dressed again.  He was warm and steady against Q’s right side.  “I’ve picked up a thing or two over the years.  I like surviving,” he brushed off lightly.

Tense at first, Q slowly let himself relax until he was tentatively leaning against the muscled form next to him.  Since James was sitting this close, he supposed that he was expected to do so, or at least invited.  He pulled the jacket near him again, and when James waved it off instead of taking it, Q settled the dense material over his legs… then dared to flick it over 007’s a bit, too.  The agent made a little noise that might have been surprise, appreciation, or both.  The room continued to get steadily warmer, until it felt very nearly cozy, flush against a warm body and finally dressed appropriately.

‘ _May as well go all-in_ ,’ Q said to himself, and leaned his full weight into 007’s shoulder.  He wasn’t rebuffed, and found the new position quite comfortable.  “What did you do before this?” he asked, because if he was taking a few risks, he might as well take more, “Before Eigengrau, I mean?”

“Didn’t you see my file?  I swear that’s what you were doing when we first met.”

“I was skimming.  I stopped reading in depth after getting more than I bargained for with Lecter’s file,” Q admitted with a grimace, quickly going on, “I was just looking for my brother’s file.”

Bond accepted that with a hum, and for a moment it didn’t seem like he’d answer.  Q didn’t have very good peripheral vision beyond the range of his glasses, and he resisted the urge to look over and read the man’s expression.  Instead of letting it go, however, the high-Pass agent began speaking after a moment, “I was a spy.”  He inhaled and exhaled, and Q got a little thrill out of feeling the expansion of 007’s chest through his arm.  “And a mercenary.  I did what people paid me to do, and I was good at it.  Good enough that the only reason I still needed to work was because I had a few bad habits.”

“Oh?”

“Expensive alcohol and more expensive women,” James admitted, then tipped his head.  When Q looked over, the man was staring off thoughtfully at nothing, and said a moment later without an ounce of shame, “Although I could generally get the latter for free.  I’ve had a few offer to pay _me_ for the night, actually.  Good Scotch is a bit more immune to charm, unfortunately.”

This was a bit more of an answer than Q had bargained for, and now he was the one staring stoically forward as if eye-contact would burn him.  He searched desperately for a better topic that wouldn’t seem like a totally obvious escape.  He grasped at something that wasn’t too far off: “What about the other agents?  Do you know what they were doing before Sybil caught them?”  He realized that this question might be useful to him, and revised, “What would they be doing now if they weren’t in Eigengrau?”

Bond made a noise of contemplation low in his throat, and Q felt the vibration of it.  He was getting positively cozy now, and when his legs relaxed, his shoe bumped 007’s.  The agent didn’t seem to mind.  “Trevelyan, Shaw, and I were in the same business – mercenaries.  I can’t see Shaw ever doing anything else, honestly.”

“But you and Trevelyan?”

Bond shrugged.  Q felt the flex of muscles right through the layers of clothing.  “We’ve played a thousand different men before – from businessmen to hired thugs, from paupers to princes – so it’s not beyond imagination that we could take on one of those roles more permanently.  Most of us are perfectly capable of blending in.  Even Lecter.”  James glanced over and caught Q giving him a scandalized look; the blond-haired man grinned back.  “Scary thought, isn’t it?  Hannibal was actually a very respectable member of society right up until the Sybil System ran him to ground.  A psychiatrist, I believe.”

Q couldn’t think of a response, because that was truly a terrifying scenario to imagine.  He’d pondered how the Hounds looked so normal at first glance, but had never considered the fact that they were barely even trying to hide what they were, in Eigengrau.  They could be themselves here.  But out in the world, they could weave masks that could fool – and had fooled - everyone they met.

Then, because 007 was too observant by half, James went on with a gentler, more rueful smile, “Trying to imagine us as reformed convicts, transitioning back into society?”

Caught out, Q stiffened… then sagged.  There was no point in lying, he realized defeatedly.  “Can’t blame a man for dreaming,” he replied weakly.

There was another stretch of silence, and then, unexpectedly… James shifted his weight.  Now he was leaning back into Q, purposefully.  His gaze was forward again, but his eyes were half-lidded, and somehow his expression was missing its omnipresent lethal edge for the first time since Q had met him.  “Thanks, Q,” he said softly, completely out of the blue, and it took the Quartermaster a moment to realize that he was being thanks for thinking well of a man who’d been treated as an irredeemable monster for the most recent stretch of his life.

They sat and listened to the water running, soaking up the heat and the safety while it lasted.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favorite chapters :3 I enjoy playing with the give-and-take of explicit consent and slightly BDSM-y undertones. I also enjoy letting James show his 'human' side... and Q noticing it <3
> 
> Up next: back to Will, who's been having some very vivid dreams... and Hannibal is curious enough to awaken him from one. Sounds like fun, right? ;)


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal has saved Will from those who might attack him - but can he protect Will from himself?
> 
> And, for that matter, can he protect himself from _Will_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the chapter in which Will has some very vivid nightmares (WARNINGS for descriptions of gore), and he doesn't always react well when awoken from said nightmares...

~^~

Q and Bond talked a little bit more, their conversation revolving delicately around the topic to which there possibly was no answer: How could they end this in a way that would make them both happy?  Something about the warmth and the hushing sound of the water created a sense of camaraderie that, while probably false, made it easier to talk about subjects that had been touchy earlier.  Q still knew, logically, that 007 was a dangerous man – a qualified killer – but the Hound felt warm and human by his side.  That warmth and sense of humanity lulled the fear in Q until it was something manageable, and he was very nearly dozing before he even realized it.  The conversation had petered off, and James hadn’t made any comment to rouse the younger man when Q’s head lolled against the side of James’s neck.

An unknown length of time later, however, Bond jostled Q with a roll of his shoulder.  “Gotta move, Q.  As cozy as this is, we can’t stay here forever.”

“Why not?” Q grumbled with more petulance than he wanted to admit to.

Then his stomach growled, which pretty much answered the question even before James chortled and said, “Because otherwise you’ll starve.  I’ve got some practice at going without food, but you hardly look like you eat enough as it is.”

The jab at his skinniness got Q moving more than anything else, his ego pushing aside the part of him that wanted to stay where he was and forget about anything but the warmth, the nest of clothes, and the surprisingly comfortable shoulder he’d taken as a pillow.  So while Q got up and stretched the stiffness from his legs, James braved the showers to turn off the water.  When the agent returned to find Q once again gamely shouldering their satchel of supplies, he dipped his head in approval – but also gave the boffin an assessing once-over, a look that was too clinical to be caring, and yet made Q feel inexplicably cared _for_.  James was looking for points of weakness, but not to exploit them, and from a man trained to go for the throat, there was something humbling and flattering about that kind of nonlethal attention.

James beckoned him on with a jerk of his chin a moment later, apparently deciding that Q was well enough to go on.  Q still felt a bit like hell, but decided that he trusted the agent’s judgment.  Plus, he was ravenous, so if 007 was promising food, he’d follow the man through just about anything.

Almost.

~^~

Will was dreaming.  Or, at least, he assumed he was – there were an increasing number of days in which he just wasn’t sure anymore, and his last memories slewed into nightmare in a way that wasn’t easy to untangle.  He was kneeling over McKenna, the throb of his own heartbeat and the panting of his breath loud in his ears.  At first, he thought that he heard McKenna’s breathing, too, but then he realized that the man was silent.  Horror a distant buzz at the back of his mind, Will reached forward, feeling for a pulse – nothing.  The neck beneath his hands felt wrong, too, its angle absurd.  The more he looked at it, the more broken it looked, but he simultaneously found his ability to feel panicked about that waning.  It was as if someone had stuck him with a blade, but it wasn’t blood pouring out, but rather his fears and anxieties.  Following those emotions came the little, persistent voice in his head that was always telling him what was right and wrong – how to act if he wanted to be seen as human, how to act if he wanted the Sybil System to mark him as low-Pass.  He felt his humanity pouring out through a wound he couldn’t see, and it puzzled him.  He was astride a dead body, his exhaustion telling him that he’d done this, but he was having a harder and harder time recalling that this was a bad thing.

Had he ever known that this was bad?  That question managed to prick at his dwindling sense of morality, and he started shaking.

“Will.”

In the midst of Will’s frantic puzzlement, a voice reached him, low and steady.  It had a slight rasp to it like a barren wind past a barren tree, and there was an agelessness to it – if this was a wind past a tree, then that tree had roots, and that wind had circled the earth forever.  Will dragged his gaze away from the man he’d killed, although it took effort to lift his eyes and find that strange voice.

For a moment, he saw a man: broad shoulders, confident stance, tawny eyes beneath tawny hair.  Then Will blinked and he was staring at a great feathered stag, its feathered body inky and dark with its great antler arching back to scrape the hallway ceiling.  Will gasped, struck speechless, unable to determine if he was afraid or awed.

The stag pawed impatiently, cloven hooves cracking sharply against the manmade floor.  Between blinks, it was a man again with deep-set, unblinking eyes – then a manlike being with ink-dark skin and a crown of antlers – but all of them spoke in that same calm, collected voice.

“Will.  You’re all right, Will.”

“I killed a man,” Will tried to argue.  He sensed that he was supposed to argue.  His eyes were still being drawn downwards, and he imagined that it was shame urging him to drop his gaze back down to McKenna’s corpse.

“You hunted prey,” the voice argued, seeming to reach right into Will’s head with light fingers even as he watched the stag toss its great head.  Eyes as dark and moist as a river stone fixed on Will, seeming to condescend, to scoff, even as the voice remained nothing but soothing, “You’re not like everyone else, Will.  You’re a wolf.”

The words seemed to echo.  The world seemed to shudder.  Will felt something quake in his bones.  Now he was staring at the entity he didn’t have a name for, the thing that stood on two legs like a human but scratched the light fixture with antlers like black branches, everything so onyx-dark and midnight-smooth…

“You’re a wolf, Will, and wolves hunt.  Do you mourn prey?”

No, Will didn’t suppose you did that.  He felt an ache in his jaws, but the pain felt fresh and clean after the usual, pounding misery of his headaches.  Only then did Will realize his head didn’t hurt anymore – it was like he always had a migraine hovering in the back of his skull nowadays, but the pain had been sapped away, replaced by this glass-clear sting.

He was looking at the man again, at the man he’d seen a few days ago.  Hannibal Lecter.  The man who hunted man.  “What do you do with prey, Will?” Lecter went on, saying Will’s name over and over again like a spell that built upon repetition.  Those eyes were unfathomable, and when Will met them and looked into them, the pain in his jaw intensified even as his pulse quickened.  This was a good kind of pain, like healing, like birthing.

Hannibal’s expression finally changed: he went from aloof and watchful to softly, indulgently smiling.  He tilted his head until ash-blond bangs fell forward across his forehead a little, and he coaxed like a patient parent with a favorite child, “What do you do with prey, Will?”

Now Will looked down, something in him telling him that it was time to.  The corpse was beneath him, still warm, still so fresh that it was like he could smell McKenna’s last breath hovering on his lips.  When Will leaned closer, the pain in his jaw sprang forth into a fire-bright agony, and he gasped – but Hannibal was there.  He couldn’t see him, couldn’t look up again, but he knew he was there.  The hand on his shoulder felt solid and familiar.  It felt clawed and unbreakable and gloriously strong.

Will wanted to be like that.

“That’s it,” Hannibal’s gentle voice soothed, as Will opened his mouth – and then kept opening it, wider and wider, agony transcending into euphoria as his lips split at the sides and his jaws popped out of their gums, replaced by proper fangs as his whole face stretched into a long, sloping wolf’s head and he fed.

He was aware of Hannibal’s hands peeling the ichor of his own shed human skin away, even as Will voraciously tore into McKenna.

~^~

Hannibal had alternated between watching Will, ensuring that no one else entered the kitchens, and making soup.  Even when doing the latter two items on his mental list, however, he had a certain amount of focus spared for Will, and therefore heard when the man’s breathing picked up seconds before the profiler started thrashing.  Hannibal knew what a nightmare looked like (he’d even suffered from them as a child, but not for long, because the monsters in his head could only compete for so long with the monster he forged of himself), so he quickly put aside what he was doing and approached with sure strides.  He moved a bit faster when he saw that Will was moving violently enough to pull out Hannibal’s careful stitches.

“Shhh, shhh,” Lecter soothed, assessing the situation in the seconds it took to drop to a knee.  Will was gasping, gulping spasmodically, and a sweat had sprung up all over his body to dampen his dark curls slickly to his nape and temples.  He looked at once vulnerable and strong like this, with a pained, confused line between beetled brows, closed eyes, and mouth slightly open – but every muscle of his body taut and defined.  Hannibal carefully gripped Will’s right arm at the elbow, pinning the limb to the other man’s body and ensuring he couldn’t move it, even as Will released a whimper and curled onto his side.  This put his body into a rough ‘C’ shape around Hannibal’s knee, and the agent found himself smiling almost without realizing it.  “You’re safe, Will,” Hannibal assured gently, making no attempt to actually wake the other man, but instead just seeking to situate him.  The mind would either awaken or fall back into an easier sleep as it so chose.  “The danger is passed, and you survived it with flying colors.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Hannibal used his free hand to stroke Will’s hair back from his forehead, just to see if…  Yes, he’d been right before.  Touch-starved.  A mind like Will’s wouldn’t allow him to make friends easily – not in a world where everyone was increasingly aware that insanity was contagious, and a bit of strangeness could get you arrested or even executed.  As before, Will pressed himself into the little bit of physical contact, hungry for it even though he was barely conscious.  “You’re quite a marvel,” Hannibal murmured, reevaluating just how much work it must be for Will Graham to daily interact with normal members of society.

Normal, _boring_ members of society.

At that point Will’s eyes snapped open, and he came to a close approximation of consciousness, staring up at Hannibal.  For almost three seconds there was utter stillness as Will, bewildered, struggled to find his mental footing.

One second…

Two…

In the third second, Hannibal saw Will revert back to one of the personalities in his mind and _attack_.

In retrospect, it made sense, and Hannibal would have to keep it in mind for later confrontations: when already dazed and pushed to a certain point of helplessness, Will Graham reached for his fight-or-flight responses just like any creature (human or otherwise).  The difference was, as Hannibal had pointed out earlier, Will had a few more tools at his disposal when it came to survival.  Like a switch being thrown, there was an unhesitant killer behind Will’s eyes, and the move he used to knock Hannibal over was most definitely not a technique taught to FBI profilers or Eigengrau guards.  Hannibal managed to keep his grip on Will’s arm, and perhaps could have countered the sharp, vicious move, but a certain part of him was morbidly fascinated, and he allowed himself to be rolled over.  The dark-haired young man immediately swarmed up over him, his body apparently able to bypass its injuries so long as the mind behind it all was fresh and foreign.

It was spellbinding.

Teeth bared, Will snarled gutturally, “I won’t be hurt again” before loosing a punch with his free arm.  Hannibal weathered the blow, even as he picked apart the sentence – while Will was certainly entitled to the sentiment, he doubted that these were Will’s own words.  The killer behind Will’s olive-green eyes had once been a victim?  A second punch snapped Hannibal’s head to the side, reminding him that he couldn’t let this continue… if only because Will’s punches were growing more accurate, his muscles warming up to the skill flowing into them.  As awe-inspiring as it was to see Will at his most dangerous, Hannibal didn’t particularly want to be beaten into unconsciousness – he had survival instincts, too.

With a raw speed that few people knew he had, the Hannibal’s right hand shot out and snared Will’s left wrist mid-swing.  Will hissed like a wildcat, and something about his overall demeanor and the way he jerked his body made Hannibal suspect that it was a woman’s mind overshadowing Will’s personality.  A wise choice, no matter how uncontrolled it had been: most women were aware of what it took to fight bigger opponents, and Hannibal was definitely bigger than the profiler straddling his lap now.

Suddenly unable to move either of his arms like he wanted to, Will writhed for a moment, then something in him seemed to snap.  He paused, head tossed back and chest heaving, and Hannibal could only stare, because it was glorious.  Will blinked up at the ceiling, and Hannibal could see the way the dark-haired man’s lips parted in confusion – the borrowed psyche was slipping.  It wasn’t letting go without a fight, however: Will shuddered like he’d just taken an ax to the middle of his spine, body jerking, thighs tensing against Hannibal’s flanks as Will struggled to maintain his physical and mental balance.

When Will looked down again, he appeared painfully confused – lost like a sparrow in a hurricane.  “I…”  Will started, searching Hannibal’s face with no recognition.  If anything, he got more bewildered, and stuttered, “Y-You’re not McK-K-Kenna.”

“No, I’m not,” Hannibal assured.  He used his calmest voice, feeling out the situation while also keeping up his grip on Will’s right elbow and left wrist; they yanked against his grip.  Will was strong for his size.  Taking a chance on how much he understood Will’s thoughts, Hannibal maintained eye-contact and went on steadily, “There is no need to kill me, Will.  Not like McKenna.”  It didn’t take much thought to deduce that McKenna was one of the men Will had killed hours before.  “I have no interest in threatening you – quite the opposite.”  Then, taking another calculated risk, Hannibal slowly let go of Will.  So far, he’d seen Will’s hyper-empathy at work three times: only once had been on command, at the scene of the killing blamed falsely on Hannibal; the other two times had both been triggered by a perceived threat to Will’s person.  If Hannibal was not a threat, he suspected that the same morals that had driven Will to argue Hannibal’s innocence would keep him from attacking.  In some ways, Hannibal regretted that; morals were a limiting, human construct, and Will would have been perfect without them.

As Hannibal’s hands dropped away, Will’s expression became confused – frustrated even.  The outside personality was a fire that fed on violence, and Hannibal was removing the fuel; he smiled as he watched it starve.  There was still a moment when he thought Will would strike him again, but then Will’s hands unclenched as he abruptly sagged instead.  Right arm curling around his stomach and his other bracing itself on Hannibal’s chest, Will hung forward, dragging in breath after breath like a diver who’d just come up for air.  “God, what have I-?” the dark-haired man gasped raggedly, then gave his head a hard shake, “I was going to-  I almost _killed you_.”

“The fault is mine,” Hannibal reassured, still keeping his hands on the ground as a precaution even as his theory was proven right, “I should have known that you would perceive my nearness as a threat, and react with violence.  It was entirely appropriate.”

“Going postal on you was _appropriate_?” Will retorted with heavy sarcasm, verging on the hysterical.  He still hadn’t look up properly to take in Hannibal’s face yet, which was probably the most poignant proof that this was really the reclusive Will Graham, and Hannibal idly wondered if the profiler actually knew who he was talking to yet.  Before recognition could definitely occur, however, Will gasped and moved his left hand up to his right shoulder.  Overall, Will’s shirt was still intact, but through the cut away sleeve, it was obvious that blood was seeping from the wound again.  “Fuck,” Will ground out, and now Hannibal moved, if only because Will would have toppled over onto him if Hannibal’s hand hadn’t risen to splay against his chest, obligingly holding him up.

“Will, you’re injured,” Hannibal informed him with quiet imperativeness.  Secretly, he thrilled at the sensation of muscles tightening and flexing beneath his hand.  “I stitched closed the worst injury – on your shoulder – but I’m afraid-”

“That I’ve undone your fine needlework?” Will interrupted with the faintest hint of a smirk past his pained grimace.

Hannibal gently chided, “Don’t interrupt, Will.”

“Sorry.”

After that, Will was surprisingly easy to work with – perhaps because he was obviously in a great deal of pain, and sincerely apologetic not just about his interrupting but about attacking his savior in general.  While Hannibal regretfully removed the profiler from his lap, Will vacillated between looking at his shoulder and just squeezing his eyes shut, showing every sign of a massive headache alongside his other pains.

“I apologize that I have nothing to give you for the pain,” Hannibal said, strategically deciding not to bring up the cooking alcohol.  It had been useful before, but would be a detriment now, if they were attacked and Will was inebriated.  Pain was the safer option for the time being.  “Despite how you may feel, however, you are in no immediate danger.”

Pressing the heel of his left hand against his left eye-socket, sitting against a set of pantry doors, Will’s mouth sketched out a wry smile.  “So you keep saying.”

“It seems an appropriate sentiment to repeat.”

“Where am I?” Will asked next, growing more alert.  He ignored Hannibal kneeling to his right and inspecting his shoulder in favor of putting both hands in his lap and looking furtively around the kitchen.

Will had indeed done a number on Hannibal’s stitches, prompting the agent to frown, already thinking three steps ahead on what it would take to patch up the torn skin again.  “The main Eigengrau kitchens,” he replied absently.  It was a miracle that Will hadn’t hurt himself worse – or, perhaps not a miracle so much as Hannibal’s quick thinking in restraining Will’s bad arm.  The older man gave himself a metaphorical pat on the back and got up to gather what he’d need to do some re-stitching.

Will’s voice trailed after him, “I didn’t just hallucinate killing those five men, did I?”

“You know the answer to that as well as I, Will,” Hannibal counseled, not unkindly.  He came back to find Will sitting with his knees drawn up and his head in his hands.

Many individuals with high Psychopasses had difficulty sympathizing with others – it was one of the core flaws in high-Pass people.  Hannibal fell slightly outside the statistics, however, in that he could actually empathize with others to a great degree.  He could watch a person and divine their motives, their wants, their fears, in seconds.  However, whereas most people took that understanding to heart and transformed it into compassion, Hannibal’s understanding of people never touched him.  It was all data to be used, and his sympathy for the motives of other people didn’t affect his own thoughts and feelings any more than an algebraic equation would.  From certain angles, however, he could develop a shallow sort of reciprocal emotion: now, for example, as he logically deduced that Will was hurting because he’d done something he perceived to be very wrong.  Hannibal felt that sadness with him, although he had to come at it from a different angle: Hannibal didn’t perceive those killings to be at all wrong, but he was sad, too, if only because he knew there was no simple procedure to remove Will’s morals.  Neither medicine nor psychiatry had found such a solution yet.

Hannibal knelt quietly at Will’s side, respecting his emotional trauma by leaving it be.  He focused instead on the solid and physical, knowing not only that he could fix it, but that it would distract Will from useless thoughts of guilt.  “This is going to be unpleasant,” Hannibal informed the other man truthfully, “but leaving the skin open and bleeding like this will only encourage infection, and the scar will be worse.”

“Scars I can handle,” Will joked, but it was humorless.  He turned his head in his hands so that his left temple was pressed against his palms but his eyes were on his bared, wounded shoulder.  At that point, his eyes also flicked up quickly to Hannibal’s face and away again.  Will tensed, but the expected explosion of fear and horror didn’t come; perhaps some part of Will had been aware of who his companion was this whole time, but was just now accepting it.  “I’d ask if you knew what you were doing,” the profiler went on, still with that crooked not-quite-smile on his mouth, “but I’ve already read your file and know that you do.”

“So you know who I am then?” Hannibal finally pressed the issue.

Will flinched at the first touch to his wound, but quickly ground his teeth together and bore it.  It was a few moments before he gritted out, “Yes.”  It took him a few minutes more to add, “What I’m still trying to figure out is why the hell you’re helping me right now.”

Hannibal kept working as he answered glibly, “Is it so hard to believe that that my Hippocratic oath still holds some sway over me, despite my internment here?”

Will’s response was a dark chuckle and an unexpectedly keen, “I don’t think that altruism suits you.”

The answer was startling enough that Hannibal raised his head, although his hands never faltered.  Will’s eyes swiveled to meet his gaze as if expecting it, and while Will only allowed the eye-contact for a second, his grey-green eyes were expressive enough that Hannibal was able to read nervousness, curiosity, and fear in equal measures.  Considering that most people would have been drowning in fear alone, Hannibal was impressed, and smiled to show it.  Will just caught the first upward curl of Hannibal’s mouth before turning away.

Interest piqued now, Hannibal asked to keep Will talking, “What does suit me then?”

Will clearly had a high pain tolerance, although he was starting to shake with the effort of keeping still while Hannibal patched him up again.  He pressed his head back against the stainless steel doors and swallowed convulsively before answering, “I-I don’t know.”  He dissembled, and Hannibal remained silent, because he suspected that Will _did_ know.  And, sure enough, the profiler continued stumblingly a moment later, “I can’t imagine that you actually need my help to survive, and you’re not stupid enough to think that I’ll be your magic ticket out of here.”

“You think very highly of me and my skills.”

“Not of you.  Just your skills,” Will clarified, and Hannibal bit back a chuckle at the dark-haired man’s pure moxie.  Not a lot of people would say that to Hannibal’s face, at least not so succinctly.  Will didn’t say anything more until Hannibal had finished, wrapping the wound in makeshift bandages to hopefully keep the stitches from catching.  Incorrectly, Hannibal had assumed that Will was simply retreating into silence to deal with the pain, but instead it appeared the other man had been thinking – when his eyes opened again, there was dawning understanding in them.  Will turned to face Hannibal again, brows furrowed and eyes focused cautiously on Hannibal’s nose.  “You’re interested in me because I just _killed_ five people,” he said with something like horror in his voice.

“I was interested in you before that,” Hannibal felt it important to note, mouth tugging traitorously into an amused smirk once again; he worked to school his expression into something more professionally friendly.  Still, he couldn’t help but add, “However, I won’t lie and say that I found your recent exploits disinteresting.”

Will’s eyes came closer to meeting Hannibal’s, and the growing anger in them was righteous, and stirred a fire in Hannibal’s heart.  “I’m not like you,” Will said flatly.  His eyes danced up once, twice, meeting Hannibal’s gaze to get his point across.  On the third look, Will stuck it out, glaring stubbornly, so Hannibal gazed unblinkingly back until he saw Will realize something with a shiver.

‘ _Look into the abyss and the abyss looks back_ ,’ Hannibal quoted to himself with dark pleasure, and finally stood.  He wanted to ask what Will had just seen – what his empathy had caused him to feel – but he sensed that Will had been pushed enough already.  At least for now.  “I have always thought that heavy conversations such as this should not be had on an empty stomach,” Hannibal informed his new companion, who looked almost hilariously suspicious, “If you wish to run from me, by all means, now is the time – but if not, I would ask you to join me for a bite to eat.”

“This entire island is becoming a hunting ground where people are on the menu,” Will said slowly, incredulously, “and you’re inviting me to lunch?”

“People are always on the menu, Will,” Hannibal chided without remorse, and took a certain amount of pleasure in watching the other man’s face whiten, his throat convulse.  At the same time, Hannibal thought that he saw Will’s pupils dilate for the briefest of seconds, some memory flashing across those eyes…  The desire to know what that thought was nearly overwhelmed Hannibal’s usually staid, patient nature, and he had to lock his knees for a second to keep from striding back into Will’s personal space.  Logically, Hannibal knew that cracking open Will’s skull would give him no answers, but the temptation was still there, a hot and heavy panting at the back of his thoughts.

Will stood up slowly, but gave no indication as to whether he was preparing to flee or to follow.  “So,” Will took a breath, “is this all a precursor to putting me on the menu then?”

“I would like it if you would not compare me to a swarm of locusts,” Hannibal warned, “I do not simply devour all within my path.”

“No, you’re a more selective predator,” Will said in a tone that hovered between accusation and simple observation.  Notably, Will hadn’t left yet; in fact, his body had turned more Hannibal’s way.

Hannibal put on his best benign smile.  “Precisely.  We’re reaching a greater understanding already.”

“I still don’t understand exactly what you want from me.”

“Company?  Eating alone is often quite depressing.”

“I’m shit company.”  Will was playing now, and it suited him better than the fear-mongering of earlier.  Will’s humor had an acidic bite to it that Hannibal found he liked.

He also liked it – and found it very telling – that Will still hadn’t made any attempts to retreat.  Curious and anticipant in a way that he hadn’t been in a very long time, Hannibal turned and beckoned further back into the kitchen, where he had soup waiting.  “Let me be the judge of that.  As you noted, life here has turned quite suddenly upside-down, so perhaps we can let a bit more ridiculousness slide.”

“This isn’t ridiculous, this is insane,” Will breathed from behind Hannibal, probably in a tone that hadn’t been meant to carry.  Hannibal snuck a glance back to see Will rubbing his hands over his eyes, only wincing when he very belatedly noticed the various cuts and bruises his mouth and nose bore.  Probably to himself, Will muttered, “I can’t believe this is happening.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and this will all just be some wild hallucination because my brain had finally blown a fuse.”

It was impolite to eavesdrop, so Hannibal didn’t comment on Will’s warped sense of ‘lucky.’  Instead he focused on his own luck: Will Graham continued to get more interesting by the second, and there must have been some curiosity in return, because Will was following him now without any further prompting.  There were logical reasons, of course, for doing as Hannibal said: Hannibal had food (a basic need of all living things) and Will had to be hungry; Hannibal was also at the top of Eigengrau’s inverted food-chain right now, and therefore a valuable ally.  Will wasn’t exactly helpless, though, if he allowed himself to admit it: he had the unique ability to transform himself from prey to predator.

If Will wanted, he could walk away from Hannibal and stalk through Eigengrau like he owned it.  He could be as much an apex predator as any of the Hounds were, and he would have next to nothing to fear – with a little guidance.

The fact that he chose to meekly trail after Hannibal instead suggested that Will wasn’t ready to face that side of his nature yet.  And for now, that was perfectly fine by Hannibal.  After all, if Will’s fear of his capabilities kept him close, then Hannibal had some stimulating company.

And if Will overcame his fear, well… then Hannibal had a hunting partner.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Hannibal and Will are special *shakes head at them* I don't honestly know what to do with them, but they're stuck either one another now! I'm not sure even _they_ know why they're sticking with one another...
> 
> Up next: It's about time to throw some Merlin/Roxy into the mix, eh?


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's got a plan, and Eggsy's got skills (and both are definitely impressed by the other).
> 
> Harry and Merlin also have plans, but Roxy isn't impressed.

~^~

Harry and Eggsy had gone back and forth on various topics, occasionally discussing Eggsy’s father but mostly keeping to immediately productive topics – like ways to get Eggsy and his family out of this alive.  The most obvious course of action was to contact local authorities in Eggsy’s home town and have his mother and sister (he didn’t care about his mother’s boyfriend) put in protective custody.  The problem was, there was a catch.

“C’s got one of your fellow Hounds on his side,” Eggsy said as he looked moodily at the mobile in his hands, still walking along at Harry’s side, “and she’s not only scary as hell, but she’s got some way of monitoring phone calls.  One call to the mainland and I’m toast – and so’s my mum and sis.”  Eggsy added as a disgruntled afterthought, “C’s no slouch at electronics himself.”

“It’ll be difficult to keep ahead of the situation with C controlling all communications,” Harry noted, displeased by this turn of events, too.  Getting the word out about the siege of Eigengrau would certainly end all hope of freedom for an agent like Harry, but it still would have been an easy solution to a complicated problem – and of all the Eigengrau Hounds, Harry Hart was probably one of the most well-adjusted.  Some days he could even forget the collar around his neck and convince himself that he was still just another agent of the Queen, a Kingsman by another name.

The gears in Harry’s head were turning, however, coming up with different options.

After walking up a flight of stairs in silence, Harry asked seemingly out of the blue, “Eggsy, is every one of C’s comrades equipped with a phone like yours?”

Eggsy shrugged.  “Most of ’em, yeah.”

“And how closely does C monitor communications between them?”

The boy’s shoulders lifted and dropped again, but his eyes were glinting with carefully guarded curiosity, “I think that so long as it stays in-house, no one really cares.  I texted another member of the team to blow off steam not long after I got here, and as far as I know, word never got back to Moran that I called him a fucking dickhead.”

Harry looked slightly surprised and momentarily impressed, but quickly got back to the subject at hand as they turned up another flight of stairs, “So what are the chances that some of your friends waiting at the helicopter will have a mobile that they won’t miss?”

“They’re not my friends,” Eggsy made very clear, then paused, thought, and answered slowly, “But they must have at least a phone or two, or else no one would even know that they were in position there, waiting for me.”

“Good,” Harry nodded as his plan solidified in his mind.  He clapped Eggsy on the shoulder and smiled at him.  It must have been a slightly disturbing smile, because the pilot narrowed his eyes and frowned warily in return – even before Harry said smoothly, “I need you to lift one of those phones for me.”

“You’re fucking insane,” was Eggsy’s immediate response, but he didn’t shake off the hand.  In fact, he stood where he was, both of them still and silent now, and merely examined Harry’s expression for a bit.  He must have found something there, because after a moment he relented to ask, “What do you want another one for?”

“Contacting the outside world might be inadvisable, but I want to at least be able to maintain contact with you,” Harry explained, then went on at Eggsy’s confused look, “I’m going to find someone who can fix our telephone problem once and for all.”

Eggsy got more uneasy, a definite furrow deepening between his eyebrows now.  “You’re gonna have to explain that one, bruv, because you’re not making a lot of sense right now.”

Before answering, Harry released a put-upon sigh and used his grip on Eggsy’s shoulder to get him walking again.  There was no reason that they couldn’t walk and talk at the same time and be efficient.  Even as they increased their pace to a steady but ground-eating lope, however, Eggsy’s wary gaze returned frequently to Harry, questions piling up behind his pursed lips.  Harry took a few moments more to compose his thoughts, internally impressed by Eggsy’s patience despite the fact that people he loved were in danger. “Wars are won and lost by three things: supply lines, maneuverability, and communications.  Within three days, supplies aren’t as important – and maneuvering one’s army is impossible if you can’t give them orders over a distance, leading us back to communications.”  Eggsy’s gaze was clear and determined, proof that he wasn’t confused yet, but still following Harry’s train of thought.  “So, ultimately, in this insular little war, C has the only advantage that he needs: he can talk to whomever he wants, whereas his opponents are in the dark, the Quartermaster’s single speech over the intercom notwithstanding.”

“So how does me lifting a mobile for you change all that?” Eggsy wanted to know.

“It doesn’t, not really,” Harry admitted, “But an island-wide signal jammer would.”

Eggsy’s eyes immediately lit up, and he turned nearly sideways as he jogged; the boy’s agility was really quite remarkable.  Also remarkable, it turned out, was what he knew: “C’s already got a signal jammer.”  At Harry’s suddenly intense look, Eggsy hurried to explain, “It’s how he’s keeping your collars from being activated – that Hound, Root, secretly built it before he the rest of us even arrived.”  When Harry’s look got a bit exasperated, Eggsy added defensively, “ _What_?  You never asked, and it didn’t come up.”

“So C’s inside man is a woman,” Harry concluded, finding that he wasn’t all that surprised.  Agent 009 was a strange but scarily capable woman, and it explained why she’d already been at C’s side when this all began – none of this had come as a surprise to her.

“Does that cause a problem?  That they’ve got a jammer already, I mean,” Eggsy elaborated quickly.

“It might help, actually,” Harry admitted, slotting that new piece of information into his head and re-evaluating the benefits and dangers like a gambler glancing over his hand of cards.  “I still want you to get me that phone, though.  Even if our plans are to put everyone on an even playing field and make C just as disconnected as everyone else, I want to be able to contact you up until that point so that we can time this.”

“Time what?”

“Eggsy,” Harry said, catching the younger man’s eye and holding it, “When all lines of communication are cut, C’s men are going to be understandably angry and frightened – and when they panic-”

“It’ll be every bastard for himself, and they’ll come for the helicopter, won’t they?” Eggsy realized in a fatalistic tone.

Perhaps Eggsy’s accent didn’t have the fine, upper-crust polish that Harry’s did, but clearly Eggsy wasn’t stupid.  Harry nodded.  “I’ll give you as much warning as I can before everything shuts down.  If possible, I’ll join you at Helicopter Pad C prior to setting off the signal jammer.”

“Aww, guv, you don’t have to do that,” Eggsy deflected, looking forward again as he jogged along.  His posture radiated insecurity, more of it than he’d shown up until now – as if he were more used to being attacked and threatened than he was used to being offered help.  Harry felt something in his chest melt a little.

Maybe that was why he kept looking at Eggsy, and said with great gravity and sincerity, “Perhaps.  But I’m going to anyway.  I owe you a debt, you’ll recall?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, seeming to recall that, and regain a bit of stability in the fact, “Yeah.  Okay.”

~^~

As they got closer to Helicopter Pad C, they slowed down.  Harry instinctively wanted to move out in front, but logically he knew that the people they’d be meeting were Eggsy’s people – albeit nonconsensually.  That, and the boy was clearly able to take care of himself, and even now was moving with the even, alert gait of a tomcat expecting trouble.  He was something to watch, really.  Eggsy was of medium height and size, but Harry had already learned first-hand that the brunet was well muscled, and his every step had the kind of balance that Harry usually only saw in acrobats or dancers.  It wasn’t overt, but it was there, and Harry couldn’t help but think that Eggsy would have made a good Kingsman.

“Eggsy,” Harry called quietly when he heard people ahead of them, but the pilot was already slowing down.  He was also pulling out his mobile again, flipping it open and starting to type.

“This’ll be the quickest way to get that mobile you want,” Eggsy explained, still texting, focusing on his work, “and keep anyone from shooting me accidentally.  You want to stay out of sigh, yeah?”

“Yes,” Harry agreed, having turned that over and over in his head, too.  Technically, he could show his face and claim that he was a Hound who’d already decided to take C up on his offer, but then it would be awkward to explain why he wanted to wander away again.  Harry could lie as smoothly as the next high-Pass agent, but it was simpler if they avoided the necessity altogether.  “Is that possible?”

“Easy,” Eggsy said in a tone that did indeed sound utterly unworried.  He hit ‘send.’  “There.  I told ’em that I was here and didn’t want my head blown off, so I wasn’t coming any closer until I knew it was clear.”  The phone vibrated briefly, and Eggsy opened up a returned message, instantly smirking.  “Ah, now we’re in business.  The owner of this text-”  He waved the phone as if to indicate the received message now lit up on its screen, looking very chuffed.  “-Is coming out to meet me.”

“He probably won’t come alone,” Harry pointed out neutrally.

Eggsy shrugged.  “Doesn’t matter.  I’m not planning to fight him, just… empty his pockets a bit.  All I care is that at least one person with a mobile is coming out here, so that you can hide nearby, and I can snatch and drop a phone somewhere that you can safely pick it up.”  Abruptly, Eggsy looked up at Harry from under his eyebrows, smile disappearing.  “Don’t ask how I know how to do all this.”

Innocent expressions were Harry’s specialty.  “The thought never crossed my mind,” he said without missing a beat, and watched as the poorly hidden shame in Eggsy’s eyes evaporated, replaced by tentative surprise and relief.  Harry took the risk of stepping closer, allowing him to put a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder again, this time giving it a squeeze.  “Good luck.  Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

The last sentence had more or less fallen out of Harry’s mouth of its own volition, and the agent wasn’t sure where it had come from, but Eggsy seemed to find it amusing.  The shit-eating grin was back in a flash, bright and cheeky.  “The thought never crossed my mind,” Eggsy said in a disturbingly good approximation of Harry’s upper-crust accent.

‘ _By God, if this boy doesn’t make it out of here alive, the rest of my life is going to be unremittingly boring_ ,’ the revelation hit Harry like a bus, shocking him even as he resigned himself to the truth of it.  Eggsy’s father had been brilliant and interesting and filled with potential – and his son was that and more.  It would be a true sin if Harry didn’t get the chance to know him better.  He lifted his other hand to mimic the first, squeezing both of Eggsy’s shoulders and hoping that this wasn’t the last time he saw Eggsy’s eyes go surprised and then soft at the unexpected expression of camaraderie.

Without another word, Harry let go and turned away, stepping swiftly into a room just down the hall.  He closed the door but for a crack, the shadows settling down around him like a mother bird’s wing, but allowing him to still watch the proceedings through the slice of open doorway.  He was just in time to see Eggsy hiss out a breath past his teeth and then shake out his limbs – perhaps the boy wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks, but he was also going to be prepared in case he found trouble anyway.  Smart.  Harry nodded in mute approval.  Eggsy was a survivor, and while Harry was increasingly saddened by the life that had molded Eggsy so, he couldn’t argue with the results.  Unexpectedly, Eggsy squatted down and began fiddling with his shoelaces, and by the time he stood again, one was untied.

“Hey!  Oxford!” a voice shouted from further down the hallway not a moment later.  Eggsy looked up and turned, and Harry wasn’t sure whether he saw Eggsy tense up just a bit, or whether he himself was projecting – because Harry definitely found himself tensing, and he had to flex his hands to keep them from curling into an instinctive fist.  All high-Pass agents were deadly, but Harry was particularly adept at close-quarters hand-to-hand combat, and suddenly the distance between himself and Eggsy seemed too great.  If something happened, if someone were to become suspicious of the Unwin boy and…

But none of that happened.  ‘Oxford’ greeted the man who came down the hall – then the man and woman who followed – like old chums, shaking hands and slapping backs and even laughing.  If the others were surprised by the joviality, they didn’t hold out against it for long, and Harry recalled what he’d heard about Oxford’s friendliness.  It was a very disarming sort of mask, Harry had to admit, and Eggsy carried it off flawlessly.

He also carried off the first man’s phone flawlessly, to the point where even Harry just barely caught it.  The agent was already grinning, however, by the time Eggsy flashed the stolen mobile behind his back – cheeky pup, knowing that Harry was watching, even as everyone else stood obliviously in front of their belatedly returned pilot.  As everyone turned back the way they’d come, Eggsy hung back and finally drew attention to his shoelace.  There were a few derisive comments lobbed his way (all in good fun), and Eggsy laughed back as he bent down to tie.  Harry heard the other footsteps retreat, because no one was worried now, having been lulled by Oxford’s good humor.  Even if they had been idly watching, however, Eggsy was close enough to the wall that Harry doubted anyone would have seen the flick of his wrist that sent the mobile sliding just a few inches inside a doorway.  It wasn’t a particularly complicated hiding place, but it did the job as Eggsy immediately bounced to his feet again and trotted off after his fellows, leaving the phone behind.

“Good boy, Eggsy,” Harry murmured with pride like a flower of fire blooming warmly in his chest.  As soon as the coast was clear, he ghosted out of his hiding place – and, lo and behold, there was a mobile phone waiting for him, just inside an empty room down the hall.  Picking up the phone, already having memorized Eggsy’s number, Harry texted ~ _You didn’t need my luck after all_ ~

He didn’t wait for a reply before retracing his steps, soon jogging down the halls and off to another destination entirely.  He had a rendezvous to make.

~^~

Harry Hart wasn’t the only person to have been transferred over from the Kingsman program.  Most agents had either been killed instead of captured, or disappeared entirely, but a decidedly larger populace of support staff had been peacefully hired to various positions in Eigengrau – after all, they already had training in dealing with a spying organization.  Merlin had been one of those transfers.  In the Kingsman program, Merlin had held a position comparable to Q’s, and still worked in that department, although past events seemed to have soured him a bit.  Harry had chastised him for not seeking promotion, but apparently watching the dissolution of the Kingsman program had hit Merlin harder than it had even hit Hart.  To be fair, it had been a rather bloody dissolution, and Merlin had always cared too much for his agents.

Still, Harry and Merlin had remained fast friends – and the arrival of Harry’s most recent Handler had paid dividends, in that she’d done wonders for Merlin’s mood.  Harry had to stifle a smirk just thinking of it.  He wasn’t supposed to know, of course, that the two had progressed beyond shy hellos since their first ‘chance’ meeting (Harry might have engineered it), but the sex seemed to have done Merlin some good.  Roxy looked _very_ happy with the arrangement also, if the frequent sated look in her eyes was anything to go by.

Ultimately, what mattered to Harry was that his old friend was more himself again: the man who’d perhaps sat behind a computer screen more than he’d gotten out in the field, but was still an undeniably capable and dangerous man.  And a paranoid one, just like Harry.

That was why, when Harry broke into a room on the east side of Eigengrau on the second floor, he was utterly pleased instead of utterly peeved when he was instantly attacked.

The fist that flashed out at him was slimmer than he’d expected, but Harry took that in stride, dodging the punch and grabbing the hand in a move similar to the one he’d used on Eggsy.  When he tugged, it brought Roxy in to view, her hair tied harshly back and her eyes fierce.  “Stop, Roxy!” Merlin’s low bark rolled across the room a second later, halting the fight even as Roxy followed her training and struck again, this time nailing Harry in the stomach.  He’d tensed against the blow, and therefore retaliated faster than she’d anticipated, snatching up her other hand and twisting the young woman until he had her pinned against his front.  She tried to stomp on his instep as he held her there, arms in a tight ‘X’ across her chest and a furious shriek rising up her throat.  Harry avoided the stomp of her foot and the subsequent kick back towards his ankle.

He froze in place when another arm snaked around his throat from behind, thicker and more muscular.  “Let the lass go, Harry.”

At the growled order, Harry smiled, knowing that brogue anywhere.  “I’d like to point out that Roxy threw the first punch, and that I had every intention of coming in here for a polite talk,” Harry said as idly as if they were chatting over tea, although he firmed up his voice to add pointedly, “between friends.”

“Don’t-  Don’t listen to him, Merlin,” Roxy gasped, still struggling.  She was a lot harder to hold on to than Harry wanted to admit – but he wasn’t surprised.  After all, he’d trained with her, and some of these moves he’d _taught_ her.  She would no doubt be one of the most formidable Handlers in Eigengrau with time, but for now, she was young, and Harry had been playing this dangerous game longer than she had.  Still, she tried to slam her head back into his nose even as she warned, “You heard the damned Director-General on the intercoms, offering the agents-!”

“Would you two bloody stop it!” Merlin finally just snarled, and with a lot more strength than people thought he possessed beneath his baggy pullovers, the Q-brancher changed tactics to instead try pulling Harry and Roxy apart.  Harry obligingly let go, and in fact stepped back smartly when he saw the opportunity to turn her over to someone else – she was a wildcat of a woman, and it was slightly amusing to see Merlin struggle with her for a moment.  Harry straightened his shirt while Merlin murmured things to her and kept her bodily from attacking again.  “He’s on our side,” Merlin assured, the thickness of his Scottish accent giving away how tense he was despite his gentle volume.  He looked up then, of course, his sharp, angular features and shaven skull giving him a particularly fierce, warlike look in the emergency lighting – despite the scholarly glasses settled on his long, aquiline nose.  Gaze wary, he asked more loudly, “Aye?”

“Rest assured, I’ve not fallen prey to the seductive offerings of the Director-General,” Harry quickly clarified, “Even before the Quartermaster’s counter-arguments, the deal looked a bit too good to be true – plus, I got some inside information.”  He could see now that Merlin was curious, and Roxy, too, but he decided to wait to tell them about Eggsy.  “It’s good to see you both well, under the circumstances,” he said with brisk politeness.

Roxy’s eyes had narrowed again, and she slipped out of Merlin’s grip to stalk forward.  She didn’t attack, fortunately, but she did ask shrewdly, “How the fuck did you find us?”

“Uh…” Merlin started, embarrassed.

As Roxy turned to look bemusedly now between the two of them, the older men exchanged slightly guilty glances.  It was Harry who spoke up, however, because his own answers wouldn’t jeopardize whether or not he got sex, “Merlin and I both share a deep appreciation for preparedness…”

“You share…?” Roxy started, trailing off, and it was at that point that Harry realized that she perhaps hadn’t been aware that they were old colleagues.  Harry hadn’t mentioned it, but only because he’d thought to leave that particular discussion to Merlin – but apparently that hadn’t happened.

As a sort of dawning realization began to grow on Roxy’s face like the mushroom cloud above a nuclear bomb, Harry surged gamely onwards and Merlin muttered something that might have been a prayer, “So we’ve made… What would you call it?”

“Contingency plans,” Merlin supplied helpfully.

“Yes, in the event of various dangerous situations, not unlike families will have plans in place in case of a fire at home.”

Roxy wasn’t listening anymore.  Her expression had the burning look of a slow but deadly fire, and her gaze was fixed firmly on Harry.  “You two know each other.”

“Well, of course,” Merlin interjected, which was a bad idea: the fire began to blow his way.  Merlin’s nostrils flared and he rocked back on his heels a bit, but still tried to finish, “Harry introduced us, after all.”

“How _long_ have you two known each other?” Roxy demanded, undeterred.

“Er…”  Merlin looked to Harry for help.

Harry, realizing that he’d have to be the one to bite the bullet, sighed and finally admitted, “Since Kingsmen.  We both entered the program at roughly the same time.”  He watched as Roxy’s expression turned to one of dumbfounded shock before she covered her face with both hands.  “Merlin was injured during training and was therefore disqualified from a position as an active agent, but in the time it took him to heal, it was discovered that he was a more valuable asset running the operations from behind the scenes.  He was invaluable.”

“Thank you,” Merlin said, pleasantly surprised by the praise.

“Don’t mention it.”

Roxy still had her face in her hands.  She dragged in a ragged gasp and exhaled, “I’ve basically been fucking my agent’s brother, haven’t I?”

“I… uh…”  Now it was Harry’s turn to also look a bit scandalized, as he exchanged a look with Merlin.  Merlin was emphatically shaking his head.  Harry chose to delicately answer, “I wouldn’t say that.”

“That is to say,” Merlin tried to salvage the shaky answer, and made it worse, “there are certain things that brothers do not do with one anoth-”

“Shut up!” Roxy demanded shrilly.  Her hands had migrated from her eyes to her ears, and she looked very near hysteria.  Merlin and Harry exchanged awkward, guilty glances, even as Harry told himself that he had nothing to be embarrassed over.  His and Merlin’s relationship was long past – although it had been quite pleasant.  Nothing to be ashamed of.  When he opened his mouth to say so, however, Roxy lifted one imperious finger and snarled, “I might have attacked you barehanded, but I _do_ have my gun, and if you don’t change the subject this very second, I swear to God I will shoot you both.”

Merlin’s eyes flicked to the nearby windowsill; Harry’s gaze followed, and he nodded to show that he’d seen the promised gun.  Perhaps this was a bad time to be having this conversation.  Clearing his throat gruffly, Harry started over, “To the business at hand then, yes?”

“Yes,” Merlin replied very quickly.  For all that Merlin was a grown man with the combat training to give even a Hound a run for their money (Harry sparred with Merlin enough, in private, to know that the man wasn’t out of practice), he looked desperate to be talking about a less dangerous topic.

Rubbing her temples, Roxy urged, still in a dangerous sort of tone, “Yes, please, tell us why-”  She paused, stopped, and lifted her head to ask in disbelief, “Wait, earlier, were you saying that you two seriously had a contingency plan for where to meet up if Eigengrau were overrun?”

This time when Merlin and Harry exchanged looks, it was to raise bewildered eyebrows at each other.  They looked back at Roxy simultaneously in confusion.  “Yes,” they said in tandem, unable to understand why this should be so surprising.  Of course they’d had this plan in place; they weren’t stupid.  In this sort of situation, they had to meet up somewhere amidst the chaos, and this room had a defensible entrance and could be exited out the window – either down to the ground or up to the roof, with climbing equipment that Merlin had smuggled in and tested.  It was a good room.

Roxy’s shoulders sagged and she dropped her arms.  “I give up, I sincerely do,” she muttered.  Then, raising her voice to a resigned but normal volume, “Fine, we’ve all met up here, _as planned_ , apparently.  Now what?”

“Now,” Harry said calmly, and perhaps he waited just a little bit for effect, aware of attention from both Merlin (his oldest friend) and Roxy (also perhaps a friend, or at least a very tolerable Handler) before he finished, “we royally muck up C’s plans.  If you’re both amenable, of course.”

The fiery light was back in Roxy’s eyes – but this time it was C who should probably feel fear.  When the blonde-haired young woman smiled, it was truly disturbing in its pleasantness.  “Harry, I’m truly sorry for punching you just now.”

Merlin, a bit more cautious, folded his arms and stated warily, “I hope you have more of a plan than that.”

“I do,” Harry stated proudly, and then proceeded to relate his meeting with ‘Oxford’ – and all of the information he’d learned thereafter, culminating in the tantalizing bit of information about Root’s signal-jammer, and how they could use it to level the playing field if they could get their hands on it.  Merlin was immediately interested, pulling his glasses off and polishing them on the hem of his jumper as he began to pace and think.  Roxy, meanwhile, had got silent and thoughtful, watching Harry.  “What is it?” he finally asked, facing her reasonably.

She and Harry were both sitting down now, both of their chairs positioned strategically so that anyone trying to come in the door would be attacked from either side – as Harry had been.  Now Roxy leaned back, however, stroking a finger over her lower lip consideringly.  “You’re not telling us everything about this Eggsy fellow, are you?” she said bluntly.

Merlin froze in his pacing, looking back.  He knew the story of the Unwin family, and had read between the lines; all Harry had actually said was that he’d found out Oxford’s real identity and learned that he could be flipped against C if his family was kept safe.  Roxy was apparently keen as well as fierce and pretty, however, a combo worthy of Harry’s oldest friend.  That, perhaps, was why Harry smiled a small, regretful smile and replied, “No.  Some secrets aren’t mine to tell.”

For a moment Roxy just kept staring at him thoughtfully, now nibbling at the tip of her finger.  When she dropped her hand, however, she didn’t seem frustrated.  “I don’t actually care,” she admitted, “At least not right now.   _Now_ , all I care is that Oxford - or Eggsy, or whatever you call him – is our way through C’s defenses, and that for some reason you want to help him.  Tell me, Harry-”  She tucked a stray strand of blonde hair back behind her ear.  “-Would you be doing this if it weren’t for him?  Even after what the Quartermaster said, this still sounds like a dream come true for you, but what you’re suggesting…”  She shook her head.  “I don’t see a way that this ends except for you still a collared Hound.”

“I’m not incapable of putting the greater good above my own pride and comfort,” Harry said staunchly, lifting a hand to touch the collar almost completely hidden behind the collar of his button-down.  Roxy accepted that answer with a nod, having questions but presently deciding not to look a metaphorical gift-horse in the mouth.  Merlin, however, had slipped his glasses back on and was eyeing Harry still.  His dark, sharp eyes were unreadable, but they clearly suspected more to the story.

Which there was.

Harry had, perhaps, also left out the part about leaving Eggsy behind to guard the helicopter.  While Harry did indeed see the dangers in letting high-Pass agents like himself escape to run free across the UK, he wasn’t above hedging his bets.  There was the faintest, slimmest chance that he could end up walking away from this a free man, if he played his cards right and had access to a helicopter and a helicopter pilot who owed him a favor…

 

 


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mallory has a bad day; John finally starts seeing things Sherlock's way; Reese likewise start's seeing things Harold's way (to his credit, H is much less annoying about the whole business); and two of the most dangerous Hounds in Eigengrau meet up. 
> 
>  
> 
> _This was what it looked like when two thunderstorms met._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the game just isn't interesting until Hannibal and James are in the same room ;)

~^~

The bullet tore through muscle and flesh, and Mallory was only distantly aware of crying out as he lost his footing and fell.  The agony in his left outer thigh was excruciating enough that it precluded any other pain, so that Mallory could have fallen down a flight of stairs and not noticed the change – fortunately, he simply fetched up against the hallway wall, and Trevelyan was immediately grabbing his shoulders.  “Shit, Lorraine has good aim,” Alec huffed, too out of breath for it to be clear whether his tone was angry or impressed.  They didn’t have a lot of time, so Alec barely spared one glance for the bleeding wound before sliding his hands under M’s armpits and dragging him out of sight into the nearest room.  Mallory tried to be of assistance, but all he could do was snarl in the face of the pain and sag to the floor as 006 let go.

The Hound immediately returned to the door, and there was the sound of things being dragged around as he blocked it.  In what felt like years but was probably not even a minute, Trevelyan was back at M’s side, gripping his left knee firmly while pulling away Mallory’s hand to see the damage.  To his credit, he didn’t look alarmed, but Mallory was well aware of a Hound’s tolerance for bodily harm and gore.  “We’re lucky that it was Lorraine and not David who shot you,” Alec said by way of assessing the situation, naming off other high-Pass agents even as he stripped off his pullover (leaving him in a sleeveless tee beneath) and began tearing it into strips, the muscles of his shoulders and arms flexing rhythmically, “I wouldn’t want to face her in close quarters, but he’s more the sniper of the pair.”  Some cloth was efficiently wadded up and pressed against the wound while the rest Alec wrapped swiftly around Mallory’s leg, holding it in place but also making it all hurt even worse.  Through it all, Alec just kept up the narrative, “I keep hoping that they’ll kill each other off, but no luck so far.  There.”  While Mallory clenched his jaw against another sound of pain, Alec tied it all off.

“How bad?” Mallory gritted out.

Alec just shrugged, then swiftly grabbed the other man’s arm and slipped under it.  “Not really sure.  The lighting in here is shit and we don’t exactly have time for me to get into your trousers for a better look.  Now, can you stand?”

He was already standing as he asked, so it was just about the most useless question that Mallory had ever heard.  He answered by way of a strangled off snarl as he was hauled into a vertical position.  Trevelyan connected the dots from there, observing absently, “I suppose that running will be too much to hope for…”

At that point the door shuddered, voices audible from the other side.

“Come on, before 011 and 012 start shooting through the door,” Alec commanded.  Somehow, he still sounded almost lackadaisical, and Mallory didn’t know how the man did it – he was grateful, however.  Because if Trevelyan could keep his shit together, then Mallory could do the same.

Luckily, there was a second door leading out of the room, and they disappeared into another section of Eigengrau’s seemingly endless maze.

~^~

“John.  John!”  The lanky Hound was moving back and forth behind the bars of his cell again, but his attention remained fixed on his Handler like metal shavings to a slightly-limping magnet.  Their last conversation had been cut off by more refugees coming in, and by this point, Holding was full of Eigengrau employees.  Now, though, things had quieted down enough for Watson to take a break again and just breathe.   

Sherlock, on the other hand, was veritably bursting with energy.  “John, you have to let me out.”

Looking up from where he’d been gingerly checking his bandaged knee, John made an ‘ _Are you serious_?’ face and replied, “I really don’t.”

“John-!”

“Stop saying my name like a magic word, Sherlock!  It’s not going to make any difference.”

That, of course, stopped the middle Holmes brother not at all.  He merely wove back and forth like a tiger at a zoo a few more times, then came back to the discussion from another angle. “Maybe this will then,” he said in a sharper tone, gripping the bars and glaring through them.  By this point, everyone else was ignoring the intermittent exchanges between John and the high-Pass agent.  “Whatever is going on outside has to do with what got me in here in the first place.”

“Offending powerful people?” John deadpanned, still not impressed.

Sherlock looked away and made an irked noise in his throat, but admitted, “Yes, yes, that – but before that.  Stop thinking on such a small scale, John, it’s just disappointing.”  When John snorted indelicately at him, Sherlock returned to the topic like a dog to a bone, “You’re already agreed with my deductions regarding the killings that I was investigating-”

“Party-crashing.”

“- _Investigating_ ,” Sherlock repeated with more emphasis, straightening his spine and proudly looking down his nose at John, who seemed immune to the arch look.  “The man on the intercom was strategically killing off Eigengrau employees and replacing them with his own men.”

“Which probably wasn’t all that hard,” John said, and for once Sherlock was caught off guard, and he leaned forward again to listen intently, “considering that it’s the Director-General, C, who’s behind all this.”  At Sherlock’s widening eyes and fixed attention, John pinked a little and shrugged it off, “The gossip is doing the rounds, even under these circumstances.  We got attacked by a chatty group on our last run, and they gave up some information.”  Something about John’s eyes got cold as he said that last sentence, and Sherlock’s heart-rate picked up as he involuntarily began to deduce just what that meant.  ‘Gave up’ might not have been a voluntary sort of thing, proving that John wasn’t as harmless a man as he appeared to be.  Sherlock made a mental note to stop dismissing the Handler so quickly.

Turning back to the topic at hand, Sherlock backed away from the bars and rubbed at his chin, thinking.  Soon his thinking became audible.  “There are still pieces to this that are missing.  As the Director-General, yes, he has access to employee files, but that doesn’t explain how he’s able to orchestrate multiple killings and yet not get caught by Sybil.  I mean, _I_ got caught by Sybil, and I’m far less murderous and far more cunning than he is,” Sherlock grumbled.  Behind him, John chuckled, but Sherlock ignored him and lifted his other hand to steeple his fingers, tapping them against his lower lip like a metronome to center his wildly churning thoughts.  “And the man who killed the pilot-”

“Hannibal Lecter, Agent 003,” John supplied.

“No, he was exonerated,” Sherlock corrected quickly, “But that still means that we have yet another killer who was moving freely right under Sybil’s nose, even before C’s arrival.”

By this point, John was starting to pay more attention, too, drawn inexorably into the gravity of Sherlock’s ideas like a planet being pulled into a new orbit.  He’d forgotten his knee and was leaning forward intently.  “Technically, C didn’t say that no Hound was involved – just that Hannibal Lecter wasn’t the actual murderer this time,” he noted, “We could still be looking at a high-Pass agent.”

“No, because these keep track of us, don’t they?” Sherlock reached up a hand to pluck at the collar around his throat.  He demanded, “Were there any other Hounds in and around the scene of the crime near the time of death?”

“I don’t know,” John had to admit.

“But Hannibal was?”

“I think so?”

Despite John’s increasingly unsure answers, Sherlock was just getting warmed up, and he surged back to the bars.  “If there weren’t any other Hounds in the area within the time of death, than that means that the killer wasn’t collared,” he deduced in a rush.

John tried to slow him down, raising a belaying hand, “Now, Sherlock, we don’t know if anyone else-”

“But they would have investigated if there were others, John!”

“Not with Hannibal already in custody!” John barked back.

Just as both men’s voices threatened to reach shouting pitch, one of the refugees spoke up, her voice timid but breaking through the argument, “There wasn’t.”

John and Sherlock’s heads snapped towards the mousy, older woman sitting against the wall, a bandage around her head and knuckles on one hand split open.  She repeated slowly, clarifying, “I work in Q-branch, and we have records of all the movements of the high-Pass agents.  Agent 003 was the only one in the area within the time that the coroner thinks the pilot was killed.”

“See?”  Sherlock turned back to John smugly, “I was right.”

John rolled his eyes at the childish triumph.  “You’re sure?” he turned back to the woman.  She just nodded, her eyes clear despite the horrors she had faced today.

“This is why you have to let me out, John,” Sherlock got right back to where this had all started, and this time John leaned back against the wall and covered his face with his hands.

Sherlock thought that he could just barely hear John mutter, “My name is like a buzzword to you,” then say more loudly, still through his hands, “That information doesn’t give me a single bloody reason to let you out.  You’re a Hound, too, remember?  You’ve been incarcerated for a reason, and C is the only person in this whole damn place mad enough to want you freed.”

“You’re not _listening_ ,” Sherlock seethed.  He took a deep breath and slowed down, however, reminding himself that this was how normal people were: their brains were slow and they were stupid.  “I need to see the body.  Better yet would be to see the Director-General himself-”

“Not going to happen,” John grunted.

Sherlock ignored him.  “-But even learning about one of his cronies would undoubtedly answer questions.  I only need to fill in a few blanks, and I know that I’ll understand this.”  Perhaps Sherlock’s tone had finally grown fervent enough, desperate enough, for John to hear the change in cadence and tone; the Handler lowered his hands slowly, eyes wary but watchful now.  Sherlock, trying not to look like an addict begging for a fix, continued with his long fingers curling around the bars again, “I can almost see the whole pictures, John.  There are just a few key pieces missing, and if I can understand just a little bit more – even if it’s just to learn who the real killer of Captain Connor White-”  Surprise flashed across John’s face; he hadn’t expected Sherlock to remember the name, or to speak it respectfully.  “-Then I _know_ that I’ll see what’s happening here.”

Something like understanding was beginning to color John’s expression, although it was still heavily colored by distrust.  He didn’t say anything, however, and by now everyone was staring.  Sherlock, after just a few minutes, couldn’t take it, and broke the silence to say in as close to a contrite tone as he possessed, “Please, John.”

‘Please’ didn’t generally get thrown around the Holmes household very often, mostly because it didn’t do a lot of good, but apparently it hit a chord in Watson, because the man stood up.  Sherlock noticed that he wasn’t limping as he approached, despite his injury, even.  There was a sort of singular determination in his short frame and measured stride.  “How do I know you’re not just looking for an escape route?” John asked, but his voice wasn’t accusatory.  It was merely factual, and Sherlock could hear John’s history in the army in that tone alone.

“Because I have absolutely no combat training, and therefore would be useless to C anyway,” Sherlock admitted shamelessly.  He met John’s eyes evenly, although he had to look down because of their different in height.  “Beyond that, I’d say that my brother is on the island as well, and even I’m not so heartless as to leave while he’s still here, in danger.”

“I can’t confirm that second one, but the first is true,” John agreed under his breath, eyebrows moving into a thoughtful expression.  Sherlock tried not to rankle at how easily John had agreed with him on the lack of combat training.  It wasn’t that Sherlock was useless in a fight, it was just that he’d always had much better things to do in his life than enroll in something as pedestrian as martial arts classes…  “You do realize, though, that what you’re proposing is basically walking out into a combat zone?”

Sherlock had been purposefully ignoring that fact, and now he broke eye-contact to look away uncomfortably.  “Well, I’ll have you along for that, naturally,” he demurred gruffly, looking anywhere but at the short little man in front of him, whom he strongly suspected was smirking.

“Just for that, you’ve got yourself a deal,” John said with a definite glint of amusement in his eyes – but perhaps a light of adventure, too, as he turned to go and find the keys to Sherlock’s cell.  Excitement lit Sherlock up like a firework, and he barely even bothered to listen as John got into a swift and brutal argument with his fellows, getting his way with remarkable speed for a man who looked like just your everyday, average bloke.

~^~

“No.”

Harold took the negative in stride, continuing to pack up the few belongings he’d brought with him as he said stoically, “You can say ‘no’ all you want, Mr. Reese, but I’m still going.  The fact remains that I left one of the electronic keys to your collars in Q-branch, and regardless of C’s intentions, that piece of technology can’t be left to fall into enemy hands.”

The high-Pass agent was standing awkwardly in the center of the room, and Harold could practically see new grey hairs sprouting at his temples.  “And neither can you,” he argued back.

When H had first met John Reese, Agent 008, he’d been impressed by the man’s self-containment and calm.  It had set him apart from other Hounds, who could sometimes be impulsive and angry, or else made great efforts to appear gallant and charming.  Reese never really tried to maintain any kind of façade, and Harold had soon realized that the calm demeanor was real – making 008 one of the most genuine people in Eigengrau.  From there, H had come to the slow realization that not all high-Pass agents were amoral monsters, but a diverse group of individuals who could in fact be capable of good as well as evil.  Most of them seemed more capable of the latter, but if nothing else, Reese seemed willing to follow Harold’s moral compass nowadays.

Right now, he looked like he was second-guessing Harold’s morals.  Usually unflappable, Reese’s face was coming dangerously close to actually showing strong emotions as his lips pursed into a hard, slightly downturned line and his brows began to pull together over his grey eyes.  He was also starting to use sarcasm, which was always a bad sign: “Not that I disapprove of you being heroic, Finch, but you do know that there’s a fine line between being heroic and being an idiot, right?”

Harold hadn’t heard his last name in so long that he almost didn’t register it as being directed at him, and when he did, he flicked a displeased look 008’s way.  “Idiocy or not, I need to get back to Q-branch,” he maintained stubbornly.  By now he had all of his things, which included his phone and laptop, which were useless at the moment thanks to the virus that had swept through Eigengrau’s systems like a forest fire.  H secretly held out hope that he’d find a solution to that in Q-branch, too.  When H straightened determinedly to face the door, he found Reese in his way, expression world-weary and jaded – but also unhappy and worried, if you looked deeper.  “Please don’t stop me,” H said as steadily as possible.  His words somehow still came out hushed, and the moment stretched out like something silvery and fragile.

Then Reese broke it with a gusting exhale through his nose.  “I’m going with you,” he sighed resignedly, and stepped out of Harold’s way to drop down onto his belly and drag something out from under the bed: a rifle that he definitely wasn’t supposed to have.

H found himself smiling, relieved and fond despite what they were about to walk into.

High Psychopass or not, John was one thing, undeniably: loyal, at least to those who had earned it.

~^~

Q was starving.  He forgot meals all the time, but he was used to having tea to keep him going, and so far he’d had nothing but water – which just wasn’t the same.  Now his stomach was growling embarrassingly, and suddenly nothing sounded as worthwhile as food.  By the glances with one raised eyebrow that Bond kept casting back at him as they walked, the Hound had noticed.  When those glances seemed to come very close to accompanying laughs, Q finally broke and said, “Pardon me for not being fond of starving.”

“No one’s fond of starving,” James returned mildly, but was definitely smiling over his shoulder now, padding along just ahead of Q with a smooth and easy strode, “But not everyone has a stomach as vocal as yours.”

“Arse,” Q grumbled, forgetting entirely for a moment that he was insulting a trained killer.  Even when Q belatedly recalled his situation, he didn’t immediately drown in fear as before, the reaction muddied by the memories of gentle hands inspecting his bruises and the relaxed shoulder leaned companionably against his, seeping warmth.  Q let his mind drift, idly contemplating the shifting shadows between 007’s shoulder-blades as his feet carried him along in the man’s dependable wake.  He wasn’t sure at what point exactly it had happened, but he trusted that everything would be all right so long as he stayed close.  Maybe he’d even get a decent meal.  “We _are_ going to find food, correct?” Q couldn’t help but clarify.

Bond didn’t turn around this time, but instead just chuckled, “Yes.”

They were headed towards the kitchens, which James said was their best bet, although by this time everyone would be starting to get the same idea.  Hopefully hunger was still coming in second to basic safety, however, and they wouldn’t be wading through a herd of hungry people just to get a bite to eat.  So far, with James taking them on a circuitous route, they’d met up with no one, and had only heard the sounds of altercations from a distance.  It seemed like, for three days, everyone was willing to go hungry if it meant hiding and staying alive, or hunting and using this time for as much vengeance as possible.  Q shivered, and was quietly thankful that he and James fell into neither of those categories.

“We’ll head in the back way, through the servers’ entrance,” James said as they got closer, “That way, if anyone else got here ahead of us, they’ll be less likely to notice us.  This isn’t exactly a route that everyone knows.”

Q cast his companion a suspicious glance.  “Then how do _you_ know it?”

Bond’s returning leer was all sex.  “I was getting lessons from one of the cooks?”

“Forget I asked,” Q sighed, even as his mind supplied what kinds of ‘lessons’ those had been – chances are, 007 had been teaching as much as learning.  And neither party had walked away hungry.  He heeded Bond’s hushing gesture and fell quiet as they began to weave their way through a series of doors, the hallways tight but not so small as to preclude trolleys or trays of food being moved back and forth.  Soon they came to the two-way swinging doors that were a staple of kitchens everywhere, and Q had by this point relaxed a bit – even 007 wasn’t giving off signs of tension, so Q allowed himself to look around curiously.  As with every room in Eigengrau without access to day-lit windows, everything was lit an eerie gold by just emergency lighting, but they had obviously entered a kitchen.

Q was just registering that the place was actually comfortably warm when 007 suddenly went from calm but alert to suddenly one big mass of tension.  “Fuck,” Q heard him say under his breath, but it was another two heartbeats before Q was able to follow 007’s fixed, dangerously narrowed blue eyes – then another few heartbeats before Q realized that the shadow he was looking at was actually a person, and that person was Agent 003.  Q’s eyes widened, and he was about to back up when James reached back and caught his sleeve, silently demanding stillness.  Feeling a lot like a rabbit caught in the shadow of a hawk, hoping to blend into the grass, Q looked back again at Lecter’s deeply shadowed eyes.  The man was dressed eerily like James, actually: a grey pullover whose high neck artfully hid his collar, and dark trousers that seemed to accentuate the power of his legs, his steady stance.  He looked eminently at ease there, standing in the shadows just a few strides away.  007 hadn’t even noticed him, and somehow that was the scariest part.

“Hannibal!”  The new voice, sharp and sudden, was unexpected.  One of Hannibal’s eyebrows rose mildly and he turned to look back and to his left.  Another figure appeared, dark-haired and lacking a Hound’s collar, striding out of the deeper shadows.  Q didn’t recognize the fellow, but while the newcomer looked rather the worse for wear – scabbed cuts on his cheek and mouth, one sleeve torn to reveal a bandaged shoulder – he approached Hannibal without any markers of fear or hesitation.  And Hannibal let him, not turning despite the attentive angling of his head.  The newcomer had quick, expressive eyes beneath a messy fall of dark hair, and those eyes quickly flicked past Hannibal to take in Bond and Q, beginning to grow wary now.  As his gaze hit James, they paused on 007's eyes... and the injured young man missed a step.  Unexpectedly, Hannibal reached over without a word and steadied him.  Q frowned, unable to puzzle apart the agent's attentiveness or square it with Hannibal’s usual lethality.

Hannibal, one hand still on his companion’s right elbow, turned back to Bond and Q with a deceptively benign smile.  “Will, let me introduce you to James Bond, a fellow agent like myself,” he said cordially, although there was something ironic glinting in his eyes as he dipped his head minutely 007’s way.  Increasing Q’s worry was the way Bond stiffened; Q watched the lines of muscles sharpen beneath 007’s pullover, all down the agent’s arms and back.  Then Hannibal’s eyes flicked past James to settle on Q, something amused and intrigued lighting them almost imperceptibly.  “And the new Quartermaster of Eigengrau.  James, Q – meet Will Graham.”

“Hi,” Graham said, in what Q could only call supreme awkwardness.  He’d ripped his eyes away from James’s and now seemed unsure where to put his gaze, eyes flicking restlessly around Bond’s shoulders, Q’s chin and hair, making Q wonder if there was perhaps something wrong with him.

The movement was slow and easy, yet somehow possessive, as Hannibal’s hand moved from Will’s elbow to his back – polite yet somehow out of place for the situation.  003’s eyes remained on Q for a moment, mild and outwardly friendly as he said, “It’s a pleasure to see you still alive under the circumstances, Quartermaster.”  Then Hannibal’s eyes roved back to James, and it was like the temperature in the room dropped.  The air between them could have been cracked like a sheet of ice, and Q quivered under the tension in the air.  This was what it looked like when two thunderstorms met.  Out of all the high-Pass agents that Q had met, Hannibal Lecter was definitely one of the most dangerous – but Q’s appreciation for Bond’s deadliness grew by the day, and he was meeting 003’s gaze with a level-eyed deadliness that was the equivalent of an unsheathed knife.  Next to Hannibal, Will shifted a step back.  

“007,” Hannibal addressed him again, slow and easy, soft and quiet with the slightest cat’s-tongue rasp, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

~^~

Mallory was in bad shape, but he was still alive and breathing, not to mention swearing, as he and 006 made it to one of the abandoned living quarters – having finally shaken the most recent pursuit.  The make-shift bandage was soaked through with blood, and Alec dug through the simple, Spartan rooms for supplies while Mallory sat on the edge of the bed and tried vainly to ignore the pain.

“Usually I’d tell you that it’s totally manly to scream,” Alec called from the little en suite bathroom, “but for now, being quiet is probably for the best."

Taking a couple of deep breaths, pushing the throbbing agony of his leg down, Mallory said breathlessly but otherwise quite calmly, “Fuck you.”

Trevelyan just laughed.  He’d never been much intimidated by authority before, and wasn’t about to start now, clearly.  He returned a moment later with some towels and a first aid kit stuffed under one arm, a glass of water in the other.  Initially, M balked at the offered cup, before he realized how ridiculous it was to distrust offerings from a man who could have let him die on a dozen different occasions today.  With one last wary glance, the head of Eigengrau accepted the glass with a silent nod of thanks, then gulped it down greedily.  He likewise only hesitated a second before accepting Paracetamol from the first aid kit, realizing that he needed painkillers more than he needed his machismo.

“Well then, now that the party’s over, I guess it’s time to see just how bad this is,” Alec nodded to Mallory’s leg, dropping down onto his haunches next to the bed.  He was already making a face.  “I can either cut away your trousers all the way up to your hip, or you can strip them off and save us both the trouble,” Alec offered frankly, then shrugged, “The second option will also save us both the embarrassment of you running around with one open trouser-leg from here on out.”

“Whereas the first option leaves me running around in just my pants,” Mallory cut back wryly.

Alec was unfazed; snark had always been his native tongue.  “You say that like it’s going to be permanent, and I won’t let you have your trousers back.”  He was reaching for the bandage while he spoke, so Mallory gave in at that point, undoing his belt and then the button and zip for his trousers while Alec unwrapped the wound.  Despite the tight bandage, the wound had bled enough to soak a patch of red into his trouser-leg as broad as his spread hand, and it stuck to his leg like a wetsuit as he tried to pull it off.  Without being asked, Alec stepped in to help, and Mallory couldn’t contain a few more sharp expletives by the time he stripped the garment off.

“What?” Mallory panted, looking warily at Alec as the Hound stood a few steps away, just staring with a peculiar expression on his rugged features.

The expression resolved itself into a cheeky smile, and Alec winked, “Just thinking about how I never thought I’d see the head of Eigengrau without his trousers.  I’m committing it to memory.  You’ve really got nice legs.”

Mallory lobbed the bottle of pills at Alec’s head, and was too tired to be more than irked when the agent caught the object before it could hit him.  The grin was fully-fledged now, reminding Mallory that 006 was renowned as one of the most _annoying_ agents in Eigengrau, as well as one of the deadliest.  The deadliness of the man before him still had Mallory unnerved, and he tensed up and leaned away as Alec approached, although he knew that he couldn’t’ go anywhere – Lorraine, Agent 011, he recalled now, and her bullet had seen to that.  Surprisingly, though, Alec showed enough sensitivity to slow down his approach and show his hands empty of everything except the intercepted Paracetamol bottle.  “Hey, if I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it already,” the Hound said, tone surprisingly frank and the humor gone as if it had never existed, “But Q made a pretty good case for you, and I know that James trusts the boffin’s judgment, too.”  Alec pulled up a chair so that he could sit by Mallory’s left knee, and the head of Eigengrau let him, even if he still eyed the Hound askance.  “Now, are you going to let me help you with that leg, or are we going to have a fight over this?”

Narrowing his eyes, Mallory lifted his chin proudly even as he observed with full awareness of his situation, “I’m pretty sure that any fight at this point would be one-sided.”

Alec’s mouth twitched towards a smile.  “So I guess the real question is, are you going to let me help you with that leg, or are you going to be a stupid arse about it and force me to sit on you and _then_ fix your leg?”

“Everything I’ve heard is true,” Mallory said in faux surprise, “You really are an insufferable bastard.”

The smile grew into something wickedly pleased.  “That’s not exactly the nicest thing that someone has ever said to me after I’ve gotten them out of their trousers, but I’ll take it,” Alec said airily.  He took that as permission to get to work, however, and unabashedly reached over Mallory’s lap to grab the first-aid kit, where he’d left it on the other corner of the bed.  What followed was not easy and was not pleasant, but Alec knew what he was doing and did indeed seem determined to patch M up and keep him alive.

Later, Mallory lay passed out on the bed, still _sans_ trousers but with gauze wrapped neatly around his upper left thigh.  He was alive, and breathing, and would live to see tomorrow.  Alec, blood still all over his hands, stood over him in the semi-darkness, his expression cast unreadably in shadow.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh, Alec... the only bloke I know who can flirt over a bullet-wound. And he might have even had some real feels there at the end, eh? 
> 
>  
> 
> Kudos for anyone who caught the "Atomic Blonde" cameos ;)


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An uneasy truce has been struck between Hannibal, Will, James, and Q - but it could go up in smoke at any moment, and there's a lot of kerosene on hand...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for Q once again bold-faced lying to Hounds who could snap him in half...

~^~

Will remembered Agent 007 from his file, but more than that, he’d read ‘killer’ in every line of the man’s body.  Like Hannibal, Bond had a veneer of humanity about him that hid something monstrous underneath, and Will’s empathy was still so raw that it took almost no effort to see through the layers.  Death rolled off Bond’s shoulders like a morning fog, and it took effort for Will not to glance over at Hannibal – because he knew that he wouldn’t get any less lethal results there.  Already he could read a map to pending violence, stretching out like a skein between the two agents, throwing out strings to Q, to himself, sticking to skin with sticky threads…

Jerking a step back, Will gave his head a hard shake, disturbed by how easily his mind had wandered and expanded like a piece of origami unbuilding itself.  Usually he looked at a scene and only reconstructed the past, but apparently that was too easy here: one glance and he knew that Bond had years of blood on his hands, and shared a double-bladed sword with Hannibal that threatened to cut them both to the quick.  With that history already unraveled, Will could feel his mind grabbing ravenously for more, and it took effort to rein it in.  In fact, the only thing that grounded him as he stumbled back was Hannibal’s firm hand he found splayed across the small of his back.  Suddenly there was the urge to glance over, because he knew that he’d find perfect order in those tawny eyes.  There was no chaos in Hannibal – there was violence, yes, but it was all situated in a matrix as perfect as the core of an iceberg, and Will wanted a piece of it so badly that he was ready to reach into Hannibal’s chest to grab it…

“007,” Hannibal’s exquisitely polite voice dragged Will back to reality like a choke-chain being yanked, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Will watched as the blond-haired agent across from them shifted his stance, the lines of a tiger in his body-language, as clear as if the creature had been tattooed on his skin.  “Just passing through,” the man said in the same easy tone that Hannibal was using, as if he’d plucked the voice out of the air between them and swallowed it for his own use.  It was eerie, and Will shivered.  Bond shifted his weight again, and Will realized that he was seeing more than dangerousness – there was protectiveness, too, keeping the agent subtly in front of the Quartermaster.  Suddenly Will was seeing moves on a chessboard, but he couldn’t quite decide who was the King, the Knight, the Rook…  He closed his eyes and struggled to rein in his brain again, feeling more out of control than he’d ever felt.

Unexpectedly, Hannibal’s hand flexed against his back, and despite what Will knew those hands had done – horrible, atrocious things – he was absurdly grateful for the gentle stroke of the thumb against his spine.  It sent a chill up his back and momentarily banished the swarm of gnat-like thoughts.  Hannibal responded to Bond as if nothing unusual was occurring, “In that case, are you hungry?  I’d be terribly rude to let colleagues just ‘pass through,’ as you say, without offering them something to eat.  We are in the kitchens, after all.”

007’s eyes narrowed, flicking briefly back and forth – checking exits, cataloguing his surroundings, Will realized.  From his frown, he didn’t quite like what he saw.  “We might have to politely decline,” he said slowly.

“Are you sure?” Hannibal quickly volleyed back, still feigning normalcy as 007 was, “I’d think that your Quartermaster would appreciate the opportunity to eat in peace, as his speech has to have made him quite unpopular.”

“Did it now?  You don’t seem bothered.”

“I like to think that I am not a man quick to anger.  Besides, it would be in poor taste for me to become angry at the Quartermaster when he is clearly of importance to you – don’t you agree?”

By this point in the careful, too-polite conversation, Will finally felt as if he’d gotten his head on straight again.  Of course, all that meant was that he had nothing to distract him from how absurd this discussion was getting.  “God, this is like watching a waltz,” Will muttered before he could think better of it, lifting a hand to rub at his temples.  He closed his eyes, both against the lingering headache and the fact that all of the attention had now turned to him.  “Would you stop dancing around each other already?”

“Will, I would hardly say that-”

The innocent tone Hannibal was using didn’t even register, and Will dropped his hands and demanded of the Hound next to him, “Are _you_ going to eat _him_?”  He first poked Hannibal, and then pointed at Q, both of whom jumped a bit in surprise.  The Quartermaster froze entirely as Will spoke to him next, “And are you hungry?”

There was an awkward silence in which Hannibal’s mouth tipped down in mild disapproval and Q blinked like an owl caught in the daylight.  It was, surprisingly, 007 who broke the silence with a low and rolling chuckle.

“I like him, Lecter,” James said unexpectedly, the veneer of politeness gone and replaced by a real amusement – which was somehow more disturbing, as it lit 007’s eyes like pale fires, fixed on Will.  “What are you doing with him?”

The question could have been taken any of a dozen ways, and Will wasn’t sure which 007 intended: Why was Hannibal tolerating Will’s company?  How did they come to be together in the first place?  Or what was Hannibal physically _doing_ with him?  The last possibility made Will’s face heat up, and he was glad for the poor lighting that cast them all in a nearly monochrome shadow.

More disturbing, however, was the slow and secretive way that Hannibal smiled in return, his eyes dark and unreadable.  “Good company is hard to find,” he replied obliquely, “I’m merely enjoying a pleasant windfall, you could say.”

By the wary tilt of 007’s head, he perhaps gleaned something from that answer, even if he didn’t understand its motives entirely.  Will knew, however, that if he turned right now and looked into the wells of Hannibal’s eyes, he’d discover exactly what Hannibal meant.

But he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Swallowing thickly, Will kept his face forward and his eyes on nothing as everyone else began to move around them, a strange, unspoken truce settling in place, making Will think of God’s hand on the lions’ mouths on the story of Daniel.

‘ _Does that make me God_?’ Will wondered.  As Hannibal brushed past him, Will shivered, thinking that he could feel a lion’s pelt whispering against his bare arm.

~^~

It was the strangest meal Q had ever partaken in, and that was counting the painfully uncomfortable Holmes’ family dinners that he was forced to attend at Christmas.  Q was well aware of Hannibal’s file, which indicated that he not only killed people but ate them, and even after 007 very carefully asked about the soup – and Hannibal very artfully replied that he’d had limited supplies to work with, supplies that did not appear to include meat – Q still found himself hesitant.  After having just one spoonful, however, his appetite returned with a vengeance, and he silently focused on eating without thinking.  Next to him, 007 did the same, but at a more measured pace, pausing often to subtly look around them like an antelope at the edge of a watering hole.  Q appreciated it, if only because there were definitely crocodiles in these waters.  Sitting right across from them, in fact.

Besides his watchful eating habits, James was actually maddeningly calm.  In fact, when Hannibal dared to strike up conversation, Bond met him in kind.  All Hannibal wanted to know was how Bond and Q were faring, all said in a tone not unlike the way one might ask one’s neighbors how their geranium plants were faring this year.  In return, James bold-faced lied with a smile, and Q felt like he was living in some surreal alternate reality.  Or maybe some creepy sitcom about a family of serial killers.

Focusing on Will Graham didn’t really help, although Q soon couldn’t keep up with James and Hannibal as the two Hounds started up a smooth but rapid-fire conversation that could have been entirely true or entirely false for all Q knew.  Still eating, Q surreptitiously turned his attention to Graham, only to realize that he couldn’t figure him out either.  Sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed, Graham wasn’t eating anymore, and his half-lidded eyes seemed focused somewhere on the middle of the table with disinterest.  He looked like a tired wreck, and Q wondered if he himself looked much better.  Regardless, though, there was something about this man that was tough enough to survive the company of Hannibal Lecter.

Q was torn from his contemplation of Will Graham by Hannibal’s voice speaking his title, “Quartermaster, if you would permit me, I’d take a look at your shoulder.  I couldn’t help but notice that you’re favoring it, and before I became a psychologist, I did practice medicine.”  Q snapped his attention to the man across the table, finding the tawny-eyed Hound leaning forward companionably, hands loosely clasped and forearms resting on the table, bowl long-since moved aside.  He had a patient, expectant look on his face that was totally disarming, but Q still found himself looking to James.  Bond nodded, very slightly, but his expression was otherwise unreadable.  Q wished that he’d been paying more attention to the conversation, because he’d lost track of what the two Hounds had been discussing – and if they had actually been discussing _him_.

“I… uh… of course,” Q stammered, wanting to make the excuse that he was still eating but realizing that he’d just finished off his last spoonful.  Hannibal had timed his request very well.  Pushing back his chair a little, Q glanced around for inspiration, definitely not comfortable with removing his clothing in front of company like this, but also unable to find a safe way to say “Hell no” to a known cannibal who chose his victims based upon rudeness.

This time, when Q looked to 007, the agent was more helpful.  “Just sit, Q, and I’ll pull your shirt-collar aside so Dr. Lecter can see,” the man offered as if this were totally normal and Q didn’t have any reason to worry.

Q still planned on worrying, but he _did_ sit still even as 003 got smoothly to his feet and circled around the table to them.  Will was more attentive now, Q noticed; the boffin could all but see Will pulling his mind from wherever it had been and following Hannibal with questioning, dark eyes.  

The touch of fingers to Q’s neck was just James, but Q twitched anyway, having to force himself to relax as 007 hooked two fingers inside both layers of Q’s clothing, pulling the necks of both until the juncture between neck and shoulder was visible – revealing the stitches.  James’s other hand found Q’s left forearm, just above the bandaged burn, when Q’s hands started to fidget.  Q let out an unhappy breath but managed to will his body into stillness just as Hannibal hove into view behind him.

“It’s not a clean cut – a bullet?” Hannibal guessed, while Q held his breath.  He was hyperaware when strange fingers just barely grazed the protruding threads.  James briefly explained the event, managing to sound blasé about the whole thing – not so hard a task, perhaps, since James hadn’t been the one under attack.  Q was just starting to feel resentful about that when Hannibal kept talking, distracting him with, “Young Will met with similar trouble, to the other shoulder, however.  And while you appear to have gotten Medical-grade supplies-”  Another light touch to the stitches, then Hannibal’s hand withdrew entirely.  “-Will and I had to simply make do.”

James’s eyes were calculating, Q noticed, watching Hannibal while the blue-eyed agent chewed at the inside of his cheek for a moment.  Soon he spoke, tone more considerate than before, “I might still have some of those supplies, including an antibiotic.  If I shared it, would that put us in your good graces?”

‘ _He’s bargaining,_ ’ Q thought, then reached a darker realization, ‘ _Bargaining for our safety_.’  They’d walked into a spider’s web when they’d entered the kitchens, not realizing that the place was already occupied until it was too late.

“I’m fine,” Will replied from across the table, but was summarily dismissed.  This was between the Hounds, and may as well have been a different language.  James released Q’s clothing but not his arm.

“Will, you were shot,” Hannibal looked to his own dark-haired companion with a patiently chiding expression, adding with a graciously self-effacing tone, “As much faith as I have in my own sterilization techniques, you’ll be much less likely to suffer infection this way.”

Just as Hannibal started to turn back to Q and Bond, the Quartermaster took a risk, sucking in a breath to speak up.  He also used his free hand to grab Bond’s wrist in turn, squeezing and hoping that he could somehow transmit to the agent that he knew what he was doing… mostly.  Regardless, the words tumbled out of Q’s mouth before 007 could stop him, “I could take off your collar.”

Q immediately had the full attention of everyone in the room.

Swiveling his head and purposefully meeting no one’s eyes but Hannibal’s – but still fairly certain that James was displeased, a feeling transmitted by the tightening of his hand on Q’s forearm – Q swallowed his mounting nerves and went on, “With assistance, of course.  There are obviously some things that I need before I can be of any use to anybody, but having an extra ally – or two…”  He glanced swiftly at Will, whose expression had scrunched up into a disgruntled, wary look.  Hannibal, fortunately, was looking more intrigued, so Q turned swiftly back to him.  “-I stand a much better chance.  What I’m saying is…”  Q wet his lips and hoped that he didn’t sound as desperate as he thought he did.  “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, 007 and I are hoping to return to Q-branch, and we would appreciate your company.”  

The fist around Q’s arm was just short of hurting him by this point, and he was also pretty sure that James was growling, a low noise of displeasure under his breath.  This… wasn’t exactly something that they’d planned out beforehand, but Q’s mind was looking three moves ahead in this game, and as he saw it, they were facing some dangerous options: after what Q had said over the intercom, it was entirely possible that Hannibal might take it upon himself to kill Q outright.  But Hannibal wasn’t the only one…

“What a thoughtful invitation,” Hannibal finally chose to say, indeed sounding pleased and also relaxed in a way that was still unsettling as hell.  It didn’t help that the man was standing over him, looming like a statue, variations of shadow just barely carving out the edges of his smile.  His tone darkened just a bit as he added, “And your offer is not one that I’m inclined to resist, for obvious reasons.”  Q tensed, because bringing up a Hound’s collar was never a polite thing to do, and if there was anything he’d picked up from the gossip about Hannibal, it was that good manners were paramount.  He must have squeezed James’s wrist a bit harder, because the agent rubbed a thumb along his sleeve, a quick and sliding contact.  

Hannibal didn’t attack.  After a pause that felt eons long, he rocked back on his heels and tipped his head, offering instead, “May I think on it?  I’ll accept the antibiotics, of course.”

As quickly as that, Q was able to breathe again.  He was dimly aware of James answering for him – in the affirmative, noting that the day was coming to a close anyway and they would wait to move until morning.  Considering how Eigengrau was in a state of perpetual twilight, Q wasn’t sure why that mattered, but he was ready to hand off the reins of this conversation.  James got up and walked away with Hannibal, just a short distance to where Q’s satchel had been propped against the wall – James began to show off their medical supplies while Hannibal made all the appreciative gestures.  They looked for all the world at ease around one another, and it hurt Q’s brain to even think about that.  Dropping his head into his hands, he groaned quietly, “How did my life come to this?”

He heard a snort from his right, and jerked his head up.  He’d forgotten that Graham was still there – and presently wearing a bitterly wry smile as he, too, watched the Hounds seamlessly interact.  “I’m asking myself that same question,” he admitted, then loosed a short laugh that sounded like it was dancing on the edge of hysteria just a little bit.

Both dark-haired young men watched their blond-haired counterparts, considering the phrase ‘ _My demons play well with yours’_ in more literal terms than they’d probably ever imagined.

~^~

Things were ironed out.  Will got a shot of antibiotics and made quite a fuss about it.  Hannibal seemed to enjoy the response, although whether he was thrilled to have caused it or thrilled to be the one to soothe it, Q had no idea – Hannibal Lecter was making less and less sense by the second.  It was agreed that they’d all go to Q-branch tomorrow, a loose term that probably just meant ‘after we all get some sleep.’  Q explained in slightly more elaborate terms that Q-branch was his best chance at getting his computer working, because right now he wasn’t very optimistic.

After that, Q secluded himself over by the cabinets and dragged out his tablet, wanting to get a head start on understanding C’s virus, but also wanting to get away from everyone for a bit.  There was only so much he could take before his nerves started fraying.

An hour and a half later, and Q’s tablet was another casualty of C’s virus.  He glared at it and swore.

“I haven’t seen you look that stroppy since I caught you hacking Eigengrau’s files.”  Bond’s voice startled Q and made him look up; the agent had been doing a lot of quiet chatting with Hannibal up until now, and occasionally Will, as if sensing that Q wanted to be left alone.  For whatever reason, though, he was back now, padding over with his usual silent stride.  His grey pullover all but blended into the shadows, although the present angle of light made his irises seem glassy and colorless as he watched Q.  “You actually look angrier now than you did when you got shot.”

“Because I was scared shitless when I was shot,” Q informed him bluntly, “whereas now I’m just plain mad.”  He gestured at his glitching screen.  “C’s virus is good.  I connected to the network to see if I could try and combat it, but just got overrun instead.  This is why we need to go to Q-branch – there are some computers there with better processing power than my tablet, and some of them might not be infected yet.”

“I see,” James replied casually, reaching Q’s side and then sliding down to sit next to him.  By this point, Q was pretty well conditioned to find the nearness unthreatening.  James only spoke again when they were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, Bond’s arms draped idly over his bent knees.  “So _when_ exactly were you going to tell me all this?” he asked with feigned curiosity.

Q felt a flush creep up his throat; his insides squirmed.  “It… might have been something I was considering for awhile now.”

“Uh-huh.”  James didn’t sound entirely appeased.  “And what about inviting a killer much more deadly than me onto the team?”

“He’s deadlier than you?”

“Don’t dodge the subject – and yes, he is,” James snapped back in sharper tones.  He cut himself off abruptly with a little growl, glancing around.  They had the room to themselves, however, Will and Hannibal having apparently found things to do elsewhere in the expansive kitchen.  James finally focused back on Q, and his eyebrows were lowered in a stormy expression that finally, _finally_ showed appropriate worry.  “Maybe not more dangerous, but more deadly to you – there’s a difference.  When I say ‘dangerous,’ I’m talking about whether I could take him in a fight, and maybe I could.  When I say ‘deadly,’ I’m talking about the likelihood that he’ll murder you in your sleep and string your intestines up like garlands.”

The purely logical side of Q wanted to talk about just how much hairsplitting James was doing with those definitions, but now didn’t seem the time.  James was quietly seething and his glare was impressive – but what was more, he was transparently worried about Q’s safety, and the boffin didn’t quite know what to do with that.  Leaning away unconsciously, Q swallowed twice to get his voice working before replying, “I’m not going to argue this with you.  You clearly don’t like this-”

“Clearly,” was the rumbled growl.

Q went on stubbornly, even if his voice remained whisper-soft and even a little bit shaky, “-But I almost saw you killed by Silva today, and I’d rather have more allies than enemies.  And not just for me, but for you.”  For the first time, Q saw hesitance in James’s eyes as he was caught by surprise and his anger faltered.  Q took courage in that, and stopped leaning away, even as sitting up straight put them nose to nose.  “I can’t fight.  I’m not good at it,” Q admitted unapologetically, “and the next ‘Silva’ you find might end you if you don’t have someone better than me at your side.”

Silence stretched again, longer this time and of a decidedly different flavor, with Q maintaining a look of unblinking stubbornness, and James meeting that glare with something more thoughtful now than angry.  “This is still insane,” James said, but his voice wasn’t angry.

Q’s was, but he knew for a fact that he often sounded angry when he felt scared.  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

That tricked a chuff of laughter out of James’s chest, and his eyes began to ignite with interest and amusement.  This was a man who, deep down, liked danger and cheated it regularly.  Unbidden, Q was reminded of the man who’d stood behind him before the rec-room mirror, holding both their arms out and offering to be a weapon in Q’s hands.  Now, Q was protecting that weapon - maybe even coveting it - changing their dynamic yet again.

Finally, James eased back a bit, and Q let loose a surreptitious sigh of relief as the level of tension lowered.  He let himself sag just a little against the powerful shoulder to his right and told himself that he deserved it – and if James disagreed, then he could bloody well shove Q away.  “Anything else you want to clue me in on?” James asked mildly.

Lowering his voice to ensure that only James could hear, Q admitted guiltily, “That I might have been lying out my arse on the whole getting-the-collars-off thing?”

Bond hummed, but his disapproval was nugatory.  “I’d wondered about that, considering the fact that you don’t have Mallory.”  He suddenly looked at Q askance.  “You don’t happen to know his password, do you?”

“No,” Q huffed.  Then, after a pause, he went on slowly, “But I might be able to hack my way around that if I could get a half-decent computer to work with.”

This time the noise Bond made was an impressed one, and he accepted that with a nod.  “And you’ll actually let Hannibal loose?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dangerous,” was all James said to that, with no clear indication that he was opposed to or supported the lies that Q was weaving – a Gordian knot of lies to string along another monster.  In fact, after another moment, James added, “He’s actually not a bad choice.  He and I have worked pretty well together in the past, and at the moment, I think his only ulterior motive is Graham.”

Now it was Q’s turn to swivel his head and look at the Hound more squarely, frowning.  “Come again?”

Powerful shoulders lifted and dropped in a shrug, causing the holstered gun at James’s side to brush Q’s ribs.  “Lecter likes Graham.  Don’t ask me why, or what that means, but I think that so long as we don’t lose Graham, we’ll have another Hound on our team that we can depend on.  Hannibal isn’t the impulsive type.”

“He’s just the cannibalistic type.”

“Only if we’re not careful,” James let that threat slide off, proof positive that there was definitely something wrong with his survival instincts.  However, they did seem functional enough for 007 to apply them to others, because he turned back to Q with more seriousness, “Which means you’re going to have to listen to me.”

Q’s heart skipped a beat in his chest, the tone of James’s voice subtly hinting at danger but also maintaining a rocklike steadiness.  Like a sea against a shore, 007 was warning and safety all at once, and it definitely got Q’s attention.  “Yes?”

“Don’t go anywhere with Hannibal alone – even if we have to split up, you split up _with me_.”  Bond’s voice was clipped and commanding; it broached no argument, so Q just sat and listened.  “You already know how to talk with him, so I won’t remind you to stay polite.  We all run by our own rules, and that’s the main rule for Hannibal – eat the rude.”  James’s mouth twitched every-so-slightly as he said that, a small admission that he found it slightly insane, but accepted it anyway.  He went on briskly, “And tonight, you stay with me.  We’ll know for sure by morning whether Hannibal really does want to work with us, but until then, there’s a slim possibility that he’s just waiting for the best opportunity to murder us.  Fortunately-”

“I can’t see anything fortunate about this topic,” Q made very clear, voice going thin and reedy.

Bond, the utter bastard, chuckled in response and went on with a smile, “ _Fortunately_ , Hannibal is a cautious killer.  He’s like a cat.  If he can see an opportunity to get the job done without getting his pelt mussed, he’ll do it, but so long as there’s a chance that he’ll get injured, he’s unlikely to make a move.  I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Hannibal go into a fight where he didn’t already think he had the upper hand.”  James’s smile grew wolfish, and even in the dimness his blue eyes glittered as they met Q’s, “And believe me, he won’t like the odds if he has to fight me to get to you.”

An invisible fist around Q’s heart loosened a bit, and the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding escaped him slowly.  James had a terrible habit of wrapping up his assurances within threats of bodily harm, but so long as the bodily harm wasn’t to _Q,_ it wasn’t too bad.  It was even a little bit calming.  “All right, I think that I can do all of that,” he acquiesced after a nervous clearing of his throat.

 “Good, then get some sleep.  I think this might be your last chance to rest for a good long while, so best make the most of it.”

~^~

James sat with his back against the cabinet, legs stretched out in front of him.  There was no way to tell time besides the clock, and it could have said 8:45 in the morning or at night – the lighting would have been the same.  When he’d left Hannibal and Will, the other two had been content where they were, and liable to set up an arrangement not unlike Bond and Q’s.  One way or another, James could just barely hear them talking, a low murmur of unthreatening voices a safe distance off.  Bond smiled, pleased for multiple reasons to see Hannibal so preoccupied with another human being.

Preoccupied with his own human being, James looked down at Q’s head in his lap.  It had taken a bit of coaxing, but ultimately Q had given in because the painkillers were wearing off and he was sore – making any kind of comfort tempting, even if that comfort came in the form of a Hound for a pillow.  Despite his protests, Q had nodded off quickly, and now lay on his least injured side, right cheek pressed to Bond’s thigh.  His useless tablet was clutched close like a teddy bear and his breathing had evened out some time ago.  James ran a light hand over the boffin’s tousled mop of hair, ending with his fingertips caressing Q’s forelock back from his closed eyes.  He’d fallen asleep with his glasses on – bad for the glasses, good for survival.  “You’re learning,” James murmured very softly.

Of course, the fact that Q was learning improved lying skills was a bit more problematic, but James didn’t blame him.  If anything, he was impressed, although he could foresee a lot of fallout if Q slipped up even once.  James actually rather liked working with Hannibal, but he was well aware of how utterly brutal the man could be – especially if he realized that he’d been played.   James’s stroking fingers absently found the soft curve of an ear beneath the curls, and stroked the rim of it, too gently to wake Q but firmly enough that the boffin sighed out a sharper breath in his sleep.

On top of it all, James was still fully aware that he owned Hannibal a favor… and he knew that Hannibal hadn’t forgotten either, even if he hadn’t asked for the debt to be repaid yet.  Not even an agent like James reneged on a deal with Hannibal Lecter, and it felt like a Sword of Damocles was hovering over James’s head.  What made him like that feeling even less was that Q was standing under that sword with him, as oblivious as he was now in sleep.

James lifted his hand from Q’s head to instead reach to his gun harness, removing the weapon from its snug holster.  In movements that were rote by now, he checked that it was loaded, working, ready.  He touched the thin scab at his throat from where Silva had nearly slashed his neck, and felt a surge of… something… at the memory of how Q had saved him then, and was still working to save him now, by snaring allies.  James shook his head in quiet wonder.  “I’m just going to keep underestimating you, aren’t I?”  

Placing his left hand on the side of Q’s neck so that he could thumb soothingly at soft hairs of the boffin’s nape and feel the gentle thud of Q’s carotid beneath his index finger, James rested his other hand so that he had his gun held ready in his grip.  Q slept on, unaware of the gun just beyond the crown of his head.  James tilted his head back against the wall and mentally walked himself down into the shallow sleep that all Hounds learned.  He counted each step with the pulse of Q’s heart, a connecting thread to the waking world.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _James shook his head in quiet wonder. “I’m just going to keep underestimating you, aren’t I?”_
> 
>  
> 
> Yes. Yes, you are :3 I just love dumping these four together... so many varieties of 'dangerous' in one room.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which Will has a nightmare (or is it a nightmare?), and Eggsy nearly gets himself killed by a protective Hound. 
> 
> Oh yes - and a tiny bit of Kingsmen comic relief in the middle ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be a longer gap between now and the next posting - if only because the biggest bout of essay grading is looming in my near future, and is likely to keep me buried all this weekend, which was when I'd hoped to do some writing XP So if you don't get a chapter for 2 weeks, forgive me...

~^~

Day 2 of the Siege of Eigengrau

~^~

Will wasn’t sure why he stuck around that first night, with Lecter and Bond and Q.  He probably stayed because they had painkillers – by the time the Quartermaster had basically asked Will and Hannibal to join up as bodyguards, Will’s shoulder had been blinding him with pain.  Perhaps the antibiotics were the first thing on Hannibal’s mind, but painkillers were foremost on Will’s.

Yeah, Will had stuck around for painkillers.  Not because it felt like his brain was disintegrating and Hannibal was the only one who understood him.

Pain meds had always made Will feel groggy, so when the Quartermaster went off somewhere and the two high-Pass agents began chatting about the finer points of expensive vehicles, Will found the pantry and was pleasantly surprised to find actual bags of rice and flour packed against the back wall.  His other options were sleeping stretched out on a table or in the makeshift bed he’d awoken in previously, and neither option appealed.  As it turned out, however, Will was so tired that he probably could have sleep right on the floor, stretched out between James and Hannibal’s feet – the profiler was out like a light the moment he bedded down on the cooking supplies, darkness swarming up behind his eyes.

He was walking through the snow and his feet were bare; he could feel the coldness and the slushy forest floor with exquisite detail, as if the flesh of the earth were arching its back against the flesh of his feet.  It didn’t hurt, but he could see his breath clouding in front of him and was aware that he shouldn’t be out here.  People died of hypothermia, and the ground was full of brittle sticks and rocks.  The warm light of a house peeked out of the trees ahead of him, and it was as if the simple act of seeing brought him closer.  Within seconds, Will was on the edge of the woods, stepping out into a person’s yard.  The back porch light had drawn him, and he saw Jack there, ringed in light.  Will immediately approached, tentatively smiling, surprised by how easy it was to make eye-contact in the dream – or perhaps that was because Jack’s face was in shadow, and it was like he had no face at all.

The second Will’s feet stepped onto the porch, however, Jack’s low voice chided, “Don’t do that, Will, you’re making a mess.”

Confused, Will looked down.  Shock and horror burned up the back of his throat as he saw redness smeared all over his feet.  He was shocked that he felt no pain from it.

Jack was still talking, voice like an impenetrable wall, “You can’t come inside like that.  You’ll track blood over the carpet.”

Shame made his skin crawl, and Will turned away, hunching in on himself, the good-feeling of camaraderie gone.  Looking behind him, he saw that he’d left bloody footprints in the snow all the way to the edge of the wood, where the shadows ate them.  But why didn’t he feel any pain?  Suddenly obsessed, Will sat down, turning his foot over across his knee and becoming aware in that moment that he wasn’t dressed either – inappropriately attired in a public place, a mundane nightmare in comparison.  While the bottom of Will’s feet seemed soaked in blood, no matter how he dragged his fingers across his skin, he couldn’t find a single cut on either sole.

“Will!”  Behind him, Jack was getting impatient.  He was always impatient.  “Will, this is why we had to ship you off to the UK.  You can’t freak people out like this.”

Obsession was gripping him, and Will ignored Jack for a moment, instead looking harder into the woods.  The blood had to have come from there, if it hadn’t come from him.  This time, when Jack yelled his name, Will just got up and walked away, needing an answer more than he needed to be chastised and then loved - always in that order.  In fact, he felt a prickle of irritation as his nape like hackles rising as Jack tried to order him to come back.

At the edge of the wood, there was more blood, smears of it.  Triumph made Will smile, and when he looked down again, he saw that his feet had become paws; their tough pads pressed delicately into the leaf-litter, and there was blood stuck to the fur between his toes.  Barely hearing Jack now, Will trotted back along his own trail, naked autumn branches scratching like a lover’s nails against his wolf-body, carding through fur that kept him warm.  This is why he hadn’t had any clothes.  He didn’t need clothes.  He didn’t need any of this.

At that realization, the scene shifted suddenly, and Will was in a clearing, looking upon a pile of bodies half-sunk into a red lake.  Will felt his face split open in a canine grin, and he trotted forward.  Like any good predator, he could see in the dark, and at the edge of the lake of blood he could see faces he knew amidst the gory, rotting pile.  Alana, Beverly, even Jack, whom he’d thought he’d left behind at the quaint little house that had excluded him from its warmth and light…

That made Will pause, finally.  Would he miss the light?

Uncertain, he still felt himself padding forward in a daze, until his blunt claws tickled the bloody shore.  He felt a violent thirst, and bent his snout until he could lap up the wet redness.  But the second his tongue tasted the iron tang, red hands surged out of the water and fisted in his pelt, grabbing his ruff, his ears, his mouth, his legs, dragging him in-

He was drowning, and suddenly fear was all he knew.  A helpless, animal fear wrapped up in an airless red world.  When he tried to make a noise, he heard nothing, the blood stopping up his ears and flooding down his throat.

“Will.”

The word was as clear as a struck bell in the cloying quiet.  It was soft and soothing and dry with a slight rasp like a mother cat’s tongue, and at the sound of it, Will stopped thrashing and just listened.  He needed that voice.  He needed it more than he needed sight and air – because that voice could give him both of those things.

Or it could leave him in the dark.

Will struggled and tried to call out in fear again.

“I would never leave you here, Will,” the male voice said gently as if reading his thoughts, and suddenly the bleeding darkness _broke_.

Gasping, Will found himself above the lake of blood, the ichor raining off him.  His limbs felt heavy, as if he’d just fought for his life and maybe lost, so he just hung where he was, exhausted.  The moon hung above him like a single white eye, a burning cold fire, and Will’s limbs felt suddenly chilled – a glance showed him his own skin, streaked red, but naked and furless.

Glancing further down he saw that he’d been lifted out of the blood-lake on a bed of antlers, the stag as big as an elephant beneath him.

~^~

Will came awake choking, grasping at everything and trying to clear away phantom gore from his lungs.  It felt like someone had stuck a cattle-prod into his skull, and his thoughts were electrified and dancing to a mad tune that he couldn’t even begin to grasp.  It was terrifying.  He was suddenly disconnected from everything, in limbo between dreaming and awake, and the first hint of solidity that he found was the material he fisted in his hands.   

The voice was next; he could understand it.  “Will.  Will, just breathe with me.”  The words made sense because they’d followed him up from the dream, that same unflappable voice.  

Will felt a tingling in his scalp and was able to focus on the tiny pinpricks of pain, only realizing a moment later that the feeling came from a hand fisting in the hair at the back of his head – at the same time, he realized that the tug had gotten him to inhale his first full breath.  In front of him, Will realized that he was latched onto a firm, corded arm, wrinkling the sleeve up and digging his fingers into the warm muscle beneath.  That arm ended in a hand that was also carefully gripping Will’s upper arm – his injured one, he realized a few beats later.  Time seemed to slow, as if it were a metronome that counted seconds by the beating of his heart, and his heart was slowing.

Just as Hannibal’s voice had dragged him out of the red lake, just as it had dragged him fully awake when his brain had malfunctioned, the Hound’s words steadied Will’s world now.  “In my experience, a dream should never be exited hastily, but you seemed in some distress.”  The hand on Will’s upper arm transferred to his chin, tipping it even as Hannibal’s other hand remained firmly fixed in Will’s hair.  For a brief flash, Will was the wolf again, held firmly by the scruff – he bared his teeth.  Hannibal immediately froze, even if his expression showed no fear.  There was almost no light at all in the room save what filtered in the open door, and Hannibal’s eyes were dark and unfathomable, even if the rest of his features were picked out delicately in amber.  Patient and unmoving, Hannibal remained as he was, silent, until Will let his lips drop back over his teeth again.  When he exhaled, he felt like he was letting the beast go along with his air, leaving only embarrassment in its wake.

Only then did Hannibal cock his head and ask, plainly curious, “Are you with me, Will?”

“Do you mean, is it really me?  Or am I going to switch personalities and attack you like last time?” Will snarled out, hating how uncertain he was.  He squeezed his eyes shut and tried – and utterly failed – to grasp just how insane this was.  How insane _he_ was.  “ _God_ , doesn’t this _bother_ you?” he finally accused, hating himself for asking that out loud a beat later.  

For a moment, the hand in Will’s hair loosened, and Will was surprised by how devastating that was.  Any other day, being restrained like that would have made him red-hot mad, but right now, all he could think was that a serial killer didn’t even dare hold onto him.  That ripped Will up inside worse than anything McKenna had ever said.  Even as Will’s chest got tight with emotion, however, Hannibal’s grip tightened again instead of releasing - because of course Hannibal knew that he needed that.  Hannibal knew.  He just _knew_.  “Perhaps your average person might be bothered,” Hannibal said, so reasonable, a smile revealing a flash of teeth when Will dared crack one eye open and peak, “but neither you _nor_ I are average.  Rest assured, even another violent episode wouldn’t have bothered me.  Besides-”  Only now did he release Will, but with purpose and with slowness, making it abundantly clear that he wasn’t doing it out of disgust or fear, but because he had chosen to do it.  Everything about Hannibal, Will was realizing, was purposeful that way.  “-I have been practicing violence far longer than you have.  A tiger does not fear a cub.”

Sitting up under his own power now, finding himself eye-to-eye as Hannibal squatted on his haunches right in front of him, Will found himself replying, “But even freshly hatched snakes have poison.”

Hannibal’s smile reappeared, close-lipped this time but sharp and surprisingly delighted.  “So they do,” he agreed readily, conceding the point without a fight.  It was strangely relaxing, and Will felt his hackles lowering.  “But if we are both cobras, I’d point out that they readily eat even their own kind.”

“I think you’d find me quite a mouthful.”   _Fuck_ , what did his mouth think it was doing?

As before, Hannibal seemed more than ready to banter, even as they left the realm of mundane conversation and headed somewhere else entirely.  “The reply that comes to mind is that snakes can unhinge their jaws for just such an occasion, but the mental image gets rather grotesque when applied to humans,” Hannibal said, and even though he demurred from pursuing what could have been a fabulous innuendo, the deepening of his smile more than made up for it.  Even the shadows couldn’t hide the interested glint in his watchful, deep-set eyes.  Will was on the verge of actually laughing when Hannibal leaned forward, subtly but observably, and his nostrils flared.

Will frowned.  “Did you…  Did you just _smell_ me?” he asked, unsure whether to be offended or weirded out.

The Hound’s eyebrows lifted innocently and he was quick to defend, “I was born with an atypically keen sense of smell, and have since learned to use it to the benefit of both myself and others.  I was merely seeing if I could smell any signs of infection from your bullet wound – such a smell is usually quite pungent.”

Very briefly, Will considered making a joke about why exactly agents like Hannibal were called ‘Hounds,’ but he wasn’t quite suicidal enough for the words to come out.  Still, since today could hardly get any weirder, Will let loose a tiny bit of the smile that was fighting to spread across his face, asking, “So, what’s the verdict then?  Do I smell _pungent_?”

“You smell exactly as you should,” was the surprisingly reassuring answer as Hannibal unfolded to his feet.

It was like being complimented on something that he hadn’t known he’d been insecure about, and perhaps that was what prompted Will to ask his next question, head tilted back to look up at the man now looming over him.  “Does insanity have a smell?”

For a moment Hannibal merely looked down at him, making Will aware of how close they were, and how scared he should feel but didn’t.  From this distance, if Hannibal had had a knife, he could have plunged it into Will’s eye or throat without even having to reach.  Likewise, Will would have barely needed to outstretch his hand to feel the muscular strength of one of the thighs in front of him; had he leaned his head forward, he could have nuzzled somewhere even more intimate.  Will’s mind drifted between those two scenarios – dying or touching – in the seconds before Hannibal answered.  “Will, you must know, insanity is relative.  Much like good and evil, its definition is molded to best fit whoever is in power.  Of course-”  As quickly as that, levity entered Hannibal’s tone, and Will looked up to see a smile playing on the older man’s lips, “-If it did have its own peculiar smell, then you’d blend in quite well here.  I doubt that anyone would judge you.”

While Will was left chuckling nervously, unsure whether to be reassured or unsettled, there was a slight change in the lighting at the door.  A glance showed that the other Hound, 007, had appeared like a ghost and was now standing in the doorway.  He didn’t say or do anything, and the look that Hannibal cast back over his shoulder at the other man was unconcerned.

As if a silent conversation had concluded, Hannibal turned back to Will and extended a hand down to him.  “It would seem that our compatriots are ready to move, and it would be impolite of us to keep them waiting.  If you wish to come, that is?”

Will was aware that 007 was watching him particularly closely.  Will itched, for a moment, to unleash his empathy and unravel that attention, but he’d already gone too far down the rabbit hole – and was afraid that next time he wouldn’t be able to crawl back out again.  He switched his focus back to Hannibal, finding the man unbothered by the profiler’s shifting attention.  Just like he’d been in the dream, he was a source of stability, and the thought of going away from him sent a bolt of unforeseen panic straight to Will’s heart.

What if he went insane again?  If he was with Hannibal, then Will believed that the Hound could handle him – he’d survived Will at his worst when McKenna and four others hadn’t.  The memory made Will sick, and he was desperate not to repeat it again.  He had to admit it: he was capable of killing people, and possibly incapable of stopping.  But if he traveled with two Hounds…

‘ _Well, I hope that they can keep me away from the Quartermaster_ ,’ Will said to himself even as he snatched Hannibal’s hand in a fast, fierce grip.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I’m going,” he got out, even as his too-imaginative brain painted out pictures of himself squaring off with two highly capable killers.

At the thought, his heart sped up.

And the wolf’s tail swayed back and forth.

~^~

Merlin put the last rebel into a sleeper hold, looking nearly bored as the man struggled for a few seconds and then went limp.  Roxy, standing over her own unconscious opponent, looked at him with narrowed brows until Merlin noticed and blinked.  “What?”

“When I asked how you stayed so fit, you said you worked out,” Roxy replied in a voice rife with suspicion.

Deciding that they didn’t have time for a lover’s spat over secrets, Harry finished off his own opponent with a swift kick and interrupted briskly, “He works out with me.  Now, come on, a ruckus like that is sure to have attracted attention.”  For a moment Roxy glared, but Harry’s imperious expression wasn’t the kind to be trifled with, and the young woman soon sighed and got moving.  Merlin, who was usually the most put-together person that Harry knew, ran a hand back over his bald head as if to smooth ruffled feathers.  Because Harry could lip-read, he was able to easily discern ‘ _Thank you’_ when the other man said it silently.

Harry mouthed back, ‘ _You’ll probably still be sleeping on the couch for the next month_ ,’ and then turned around and fell into step behind Roxy.  What went unsaid was the possibility of one or all of them dying, and no one getting a chance to spitefully evict anyone from bed.  It was easier to joke and bicker than face that potential reality.

As they left the scene of their last fight, Harry pulled out his phone.  He’d already texted Eggsy ~ _Found friends_ ~  There was a reply waiting for him, and it sounded so distinctly like Eggsy that Harry didn’t have to worry about whether or not the other phone had fallen into enemy hands.

~ _That’s bril because I’m stuck with a shitload of C’s bastards_ ~

The more complete sentence meant that Eggsy at least had the freedom to text as he liked, so Harry spared a moment to smirk and chuckle before awkwardly composing ~ _How many is a shitload?_ ~

The answer came after a pause: ~ _7_ ~ then another a beat later, with obvious attitude ~ _You arse_ ~

Harry didn’t realize that he was chuckling to himself until Merlin trotted up alongside him and asked, “Mind letting us in on the joke?”

“It’s nothing,” Harry said, trying to hide the smile even as he swiftly put the phone away, “Just checking in to see if Eggsy is still holding his own.”

“And is he?” Roxy asked back over her shoulder.  Her eyes were entirely too keen, and Harry had to resist the urge to avoid her gaze like an errant schoolchild.  He had nothing to be embarrassed about.  Nothing.

“He’s proving quite capable,” he chose as his best answer.

Merlin’s eyebrows rose and he looked at Harry over the tops of his spectacles, still jogging easily.  “Is he now?”

It’s perhaps fortunate that they run into trouble again before Harry can decide to answer, or to bring up some other secret about Merlin’s past that he probably doesn’t want Roxy to hear about.

~^~

Eggsy hit ‘send’ and chuckled under his breath, trying to imagine Harry’s posh face as he reads the message ~ _Arse_ ~ and has to figure out how to deal with it.  Up close, the man could be scary as hell, but Eggsy was far out of his reach now.  That thought made Eggsy sober quickly, because even though he really should have been relieved to be away from Harry Hart – who was one of the most dangerous Hounds in Eigengrau, and had kidnapped and threatened Eggsy – he really wasn’t.  Because even though Eggsy had a hard time trusting people, he’d come to tentatively believe that Harry really did want to help him.

Staring blankly at the phone and remembering the man’s hands on his shoulder – or before that, gently wiping the blood off his face – Eggsy tried to wrap his head around his feelings, growing frustrated when he couldn’t.  The not knowing made him feel vulnerable, and it was reflexive to hunch his shoulders and look around him warily.  Nothing had changed in the last minute, however: they were still in the indoor hanger, the only working means of transportation off Eigengrau looming like a dull, geometric bird in the glow of the emergency lights, and seven of C’s cronies lounging or pacing throughout the gloom.  Only one was a Hound – 013, Eggsy thought his number was – but even without taking that into account, it was still bad odds if they found out Eggsy had turned traitor on them.  He slipped his mobile out of sight with the deft movement of a pickpocket hiding evidence.

Harry hadn’t messaged him back yet, but the man would probably appreciate more details soon: How many Hounds?  How well armed?  What kind of exits and entrances?  Needing something to fill up his thought still, Eggsy focused on answering the last two questions, his eyes feeding off everything he could see.  Some of this watchfulness he’d learned from the military… some of it from Dean, because it had either been learn fast or get the shit knocked out of him.  Eggsy felt his shoulders tighten and his hands curl into fists just at the thought of the man, who was like poison to everything he touched: worsening Eggsy’s mum’s drinking habits, forcing Eggsy to deal for him and to steal…

Daisy was still untouched, though.  Eggsy didn’t have any illusions about how messed up he himself was – he was stained in ways that didn’t come out, he figured – but Daisy was still just a baby, and Eggsy would die before he saw Dean mess her up like he’d messed up everyone else.  That, more than anything, was why Eggsy had to make it out of this alive.

Eggsy didn’t realize how angry he was getting until his jaw started aching because he was clenching his teeth so hard.  Just as he tried to find another train of thought that might calm him down, someone at the doorway called out – a lazy salutation, which had Eggsy warily paying attention.  Stepping away from the wall, he angled himself to get a better look at who was being let in without so much as a challenge.

It turned out to be multiple people.  Seven more, to be exact, led by none other than C’s right-hand man, Moran.  While Eggsy stared with growing horror, Moran grimaced and commented to one of the men watching the hanger, “We had more, but there were some issues on the way here.  The Quartermaster’s little call to action gave some people stupid ideas.”

“Shiiiiiit,” Eggsy breathed slowly, as another Hound walked into the room – not one that he knew, but a capable-looking, handsome fellow with a small smile that would have been charming had it not looked like it had been cut with a razor.  There was a shorter man walking with him, or rather being pulled along, the Hound’s hand hooked through his vest.  As the new arrivals spread out and made themselves comfortable in the new space, the pair happened to wander closer to Eggsy, giving him a better look.  When the shorter man in the vest muttered something to the Hound – quiet and tense – it was too soft to make out words, but the accent was audible and strangely familiar…

“Jones?” Eggsy found himself asking reflexively.

Both the Hound and his companion twisted around to look at him, their wide eyes telling Eggsy immediately that he’d fucked up.

The Hound recovered first, glancing swiftly and efficiently over his shoulder – back at Moran, who was busy talking to someone else – before he let go of Jones and immediately stalked up to Eggsy.  The distance between them hadn’t been all that much, and the agent moved fast, giving Eggsy no time to react before the Hound’s hands were bunched up in his shirt and pressing him back against the wall.  Eggsy’s hand went immediately for his pocket, only to have the Hound growl in his face, “Go for that knife and I’ll make you eat it, do you understand?”

Eggsy had run into a few Hounds in his short time at Eigengrau – enough to know that this had to be one of the veterans.  A lower-level Hound was dangerous and all, but it wasn’t just any man who could get the drop on a scrapper like Eggsy, who had become a survivor out of necessity.  It also wasn’t just any man who could tell Eggsy had enough before he even drew it.

Before Eggsy could decide whether or not to listen to the threat, however, the other man – who was definitely, definitely Ianto Jones, M’s freakin’ secretary – darted up and put a firm hand on the Hound’s shoulder.  “Jack!  Stop,” he hissed, looking around nervously.  He dropped his volume even further, leaning in with no fear of the Hound that Eggsy could see, “We can’t do this here.”

“Well, we can’t exactly do it anywhere else, and if word gets around that you’re not Ian from Accounting-” Jack hissed in a low and deadly threatening voice.

“Hey, I don’t want no trouble!” Eggsy took a risk and lifted his hands – empty and weaponless.  It went against his nature to just roll over and take it, but something told him that fighting right now would get him maimed or worse.  Jack’s eyes were coldly murderous, and held just enough desperation in them to make Eggsy scared.  He went on quickly, glancing at Ianto, who definitely looked the more reasonable of the two, “Must’ve mixed you up for someone else.  It’s these light, ya know?  Can’t tell one face from another.”  He saw Ianto’s shoulders relaxed minutely, and knew that he’d at least convinced one person of his harmlessness.  Jack still hadn’t let go of him, of course, but Eggsy added in a more confidential tone, “You might want to talk less, though, because you’ve got a voice that really sticks out, guv.”

Eggsy got slammed into the wall again for his troubles, harder this time, and he was seriously considering going for his knife – regardless of who he was dealing with – when Moran’s voice rang out across the room, “Harkness!  Hand’s off the pilot.”

Jack froze, his expression still furious and cold like a winter storm, and for a moment it looked like he’d snap Eggsy’s neck instead of listening.  Moran had good instincts, however, and seemed to realize more words were needed: “We need him, and you’ve already got yourself one warprize.”

“Warprize?” Eggsy asked, looking over at Ianto, who ducked his head and shifted his weight uncomfortably.  Ah.  That explained the way Jack had dragged him in here – although Eggsy still wasn’t sure about much else, except the fact that this Hound was dead-set on Ianto’s true identity remaining a secret.

“Harkness!” Moran barked one more time.  Over Harkness’s shoulder, Eggsy could see C’s second shifting his weight, something supremely deadly entering his posture.  This was the man that Eggsy had pegged as high-Pass, no matter what Sybil did or did not say.  He was deadly, and while Jack didn’t seem armed, there was a gun holstered obviously at Moran’s side – his hand was on it now.

Knowing that this could become a bloodbath any second, and all of his carefully laid plans with Harry would go to hell, Eggsy turned back to meet the Hound’s eyes and whispered quietly but as sincerely as possible, “I.  Won’t.  Say.  Nothing.”  It seemed to be a theme for him, he was starting to realize, but he hoped that Jack wouldn’t push the subject as Harry had.

“Jack,” Ianto said, and despite how his voice was less commanding than Moran’s by an order of magnitude – no doubt utterly inaudible for anyone but Jack and Eggsy – it was his word that got the Hound to relent.  Powerful hands released Eggsy’s shirt and Jack backed off, although the muscle twitching in his jaw said he wasn’t happy about it.

Straightening his shirt out a little and doing a mental check to make sure that he wasn’t injured (he was more than a little shocked that he wasn’t missing a limb), Eggsy took a deep breath… and then let it out to call out to Moran.  Jack and Ianto both stiffened immediately, mixtures of horror and wrath spread between them.  All Eggsy said, however, was a relaxed, “No worries, guv – just having a quick chat.”  He pasted on a broad smile for good measure.  When it was clear that that was all Eggsy was going to say, Moran lost interest, and Jack and Ianto both relaxed.  Unable to help it, Eggsy raised his eyebrows at them in a challenging ‘ _See_?’ sort of expression, before he walked away as nonchalantly as possible.

Truth be told, it took all the self-control he had to keep from shaking.  He finally sat down on a crate next to four men and women playing a frustrating game of cards in the bad lighting.  They ignored him, focusing instead on trying to read their hands.  Eggsy took the opportunity to surreptitiously check that the Hound and his ‘warprize’ hadn’t followed him – and puffed out a breath of relief to see that they were moving to a shadowed corner instead.  Catcalls followed them, and Jack met it with smiles, Ianto with a lowered head.  The Hound’s eyes flicked across the room at one point, however, unerringly finding Eggsy’s eyes and nailing him with a laser-like look.  Eggsy quickly ducked his head in a good imitation of Ianto, before those eyes bored right through his skull.

Eggsy took out his phone.  Harry hadn’t messaged him back, but he typed out quickly anyway: ~ _We’ve got a problem_ ~  Two Hounds, one non-collared psychopath, and fourteen rebels total worth of problem.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is going to be the death of everyone in this fic, lol I'm reaching the end of my pre-written chapters, so I can safely say that I haven't the faintest fucking idea what's coming next - although I have the sneaking suspicion that Will's going to get a bit dangerous (and Hannibal's going to love it), and Harkness is going to have to choose sides (hopefully, Eggy's side). 
> 
> I DO still have one more chapter lying in wait, however, so: NEXT TIME: Mallory's life gets harder, and so do the lives of Reese and H (because I left them alone for far too long).


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mallory worsens and Harold's life gets harder - thankfully, they've both got surprisingly loyal hounds on their sides. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Q and James work out a deal (and a plan) with Hannibal and Will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've managed to get ahead of the curve on grading student essays - so hopefully I'll get some writing time :) If not, forgive me for a slower updating speed... Goodness knows my other fics need attention, too, poor things...

~^~

Generally speaking, blood in the urine was a bad thing.

“It’s probably just a bruised kidney,” Mallory protested, after he was back on the bed again.  The only reason that Alec was aware of the worrisome but very personal new symptom was that M’s injured leg wasn’t letting him walk anywhere on his own – which meant a bit of awkward company in the loo.  Now awkward silence was making way to worried argument, as Mallory (still san trousers, as he’d only been awake for a paltry twenty minutes anyway) put on a stiff upper lip and Alec folded his arms and paced.

“Maybe – or you’ve got internal bleeding.  You fell pretty hard,” he countered.  His pacing took him to the wall so he came back, fixing serious eyes on the man who had once been his jailor but had definitely fallen from power now.  “Do you hurt anywhere else?”

Mallory gave him a jaded look and deadpanned “I hurt just about everywhere, even through the painkillers I just took.  I can’t focus on much past the leg, though.”  Making a face as if the limb had personally betrayed him, M looked down, just barely daring to touch the gauze wrapped around his upper thigh.  The bullet had gone clean through, but both men were understandably worried by just what kind of damage it had done along the way – neither of them had enough medical training to truly assess the damage, although Alec had gotten the bleeding stopped.

Catching himself staring at the muscular contours of M’s legs, Alec exhaled an explosive breath and turned away, burying his fingers in the waves of his blond hair.  “Fantastic.  So you could be dying, but maybe you wouldn’t notice?” he said with a hefty amount of acid to his sarcasm.

“I didn’t say that,” Mallory bit back, the tilt of his head and edge to his voice showing offense.

Since Alec made a habit of offending people – even people more powerful than Mallory, and certainly more dressed than Mallory - it didn’t slow him down much.  “Really?  Because I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard.  You’ve also always struck me as one of those blokes who wouldn’t admit weakness if it killed you,” he finished a bit snidely, and felt a little kick of adrenalin when Mallory’s eyes abruptly turned furious.  Perhaps Mallory didn’t act very wisely in the face of helplessness – but neither did Alec, and while he’d stood over Mallory’s sleeping form, he’d come to a decision that he _was_ going to save this man instead of kill him, and now he felt his control over that slipping.

“We do not have the luxury of worrying over every little thing,” Mallory gritted out, grasping at the same professionalism that had kept him from strangling C when they’d first met.  In retrospect, a little bit less self-control on M’s part might have actually prevented this whole situation, and maybe that was why Mallory gave up on decorum and instead tried to get to his feet.  He shifted his weight to his good leg and gritted his teeth, feeling a little spark of triumph as a faintly impressed expression flashed across Trevelyan’s face.  “And as you can see, I’m-”  Mallory abruptly cut off; pain spasmed across his middle with crippling force, and he lost his footing.  Even the painkillers weren’t enough to completely muffle the combined agony now coming from his abdomen and leg both, as he tried to keep his balance by spreading out his weight across both feet - which, of course, made it worse.

Alec swore in what was definitely Russian and jumped forward.  It was an awkward catch, but he managed to grab Mallory’s arms and ease the other man back into the bed, even as Mallory’s stomach cramped one more time and then subsided.  Not moving suddenly felt like a very good idea.

Sitting next to him now, breathing perceptibly faster even though this couldn’t have exerted him, Alec eyed Eigengrau’s leader with clear worry.  There was also, perhaps, just the slightest hint of chagrin on his features, because he knew that he’d goaded this reaction into being just a little bit.  “Let me see under your shirt,” he demanded softly after a moment.  The antagonistic tone was gone.  Likewise, the fighting spirit had left Mallory, too, although he focused on just breathing for a moment instead of obeying.

After a few more slow, careful breaths, however, M nodded and plucked at the hem of his shirt.  Alec’s hands took that as permission to help, and was allowed to reach out and raise the garment.  Revealed beneath was a remarkably fit torso for someone who hadn’t seen active duty in awhile – as well as a mottled bruise across Mallory’s middle.  Alec whistled past his teeth.

“What’s your verdict?” Mallory asked with wary politeness.  They seemed to have reached an uneasy sort of truce, or perhaps a stalemate, and Mallory was treading warily to maintain the status quo.

Alec had probably only trod warily a half dozen times in his life, so he shrugged and said, “I was actually whistling at your body, but I suppose the bruise is pretty impressive, too.  Sadly, I still haven’t a fucking clue whether you’re mortally wounded or not.  That bruise could mean anything.”

“God, just when I thought you couldn’t get more insufferable,” Mallory wheezed, pulling his shirt down and keeping his arm tucked across his stomach.  If he didn’t move the trunk of his body, it didn’t hurt, but he definitely didn’t want more pain right now.  The muscles of his legs were both still quivering from it.  “Why couldn’t I have been found by a more sensible Hound – like _Hannibal Lecter_?”

“Hannibal the Cannibal?  He’d have killed you on sight.”

“I’m aware.”

“Now that just hurts, Mallory.  Admit it, my wit is better than being cannibalized by a Lithuanian psychopath.  Although the Lithuanian psychopath does have a medical degree...”

Mallory eyed Alec as if seriously considering those options, until the Hound finally groaned and rolled his eyes in exasperation.  Only then did M find himself fighting a very small smile, because the ridiculousness of it all _was_ a good distraction from the fading pain.  As the head of Eigengrau, Mallory didn’t indulge in humor a lot, and was by nature a very serious man – but he could appreciate a bit of joshing, especially in tight situations where you could either laugh at it or cry.

“Unfortunately for you,” Alec finally said, standing again with a smoothness that made Mallory’s leg ache with jealousy this time, “the king has been knocked off his throne – so I’m afraid you don’t get to make requests, your highness.  You’re stuck with me.”  The Hound began digging through the room’s drawers while Mallory snorted in response to the new metaphor and title.  “And I say that we’re headed to Medical.”

“To what end?” Mallory pressed tiredly, watching as Trevelyan dug through the belongings of whomever this room belonged to.  “There’s no electricity, so we can hardly run any tests.”

“We could get lucky.”  The Hound straightened, a crooked smile on his face as he added, “We could find out that some pretty nurse has holed up there, just waiting for two handsome fellows like us to avail ourselves of her skills.”

Mallory angled his head to look at Alec disbelievingly from under his eyebrows, even as Trevelyan went back to digging, ultimately inspecting some piece of clothing that he’d found.  “That settles it,” Mallory said after a moment, deadly serious.

Trevelyan’s head swiveled to give him a wary side-eye.  “Settles what?”

“I’d prefer cannibalism.”

For a moment there was silence as they just stared at each other, and then Trevelyan started laughing.  Mallory bit his cheek to contain his own responding smile, giving himself a point for catching the Hound by surprise, even as he felt more tension seep out of his shoulders.  Yes, he’d been chased and shot and was possibly bleeding internally with only a high-Pass agent for help – but that high-Pass agent was trading jokes with him, which wasn’t usually a bad sign.  At the very least, against all odds, it seemed that Mallory had a very real ally in Alec Trevelyan.

Still chuckling, Alec chucked a pair of slacks Mallory’s way.  “Sorry, King, but you don’t get to choose your paladin – as the paladins are in charge right now,” he said blithely, ignoring the raised eyebrow he got for the continued analogies and pseudonyms.  “Now, get some trousers on.  I may still respect you in the morning, but I think that if anyone else sees you running around in you skivvies, you’ll have a hard time living this all down.”

~^~

Reese’s long strides were frustrating to a man with a permanent limp like Harold, but at least the agent never expressed annoyance at having to slow down and accommodate him.  In fact, when they’d first met, Reese had only asked about Harold’s leg once, and when he’d been told that he wasn’t going to get an answer, the man had let it go and never asked again.  John Reese was surprisingly good with boundaries.  Harold had ended up telling the Hound the whole story two weeks later when he was good and ready, having accepted that the monotone voice, flat expression, and high Psychopass hid a good man that he could confide in.

“John, I don’t believe that this is the way to Q-branch,” H observed after they’d been walking for a few minutes.  Harold was already buzzing with nerves, although it never crossed his mind that Reese might be leading him into any kind of trouble – sometimes, the things Reese did made no sense, but Harold had come to trust that they had a purpose.  A good one, usually, at least where H was concerned.

“It is if you don’t want to walk in the front doors where everyone can see you,” Reese countered unabashedly, pausing and flattening himself against a wall so that he could peer slowly around the corner.  His other hand reached back, not touching but creating a barrier to keep Harold back.  Harold could have told the agent that he wasn’t stupid, and that he had no more interest in getting ahead of Reese than he had in walking into oncoming traffic, but he liked to respect the Hound’s quirks like Reese respected his.  For example, Harold was not particularly comfortable with touch – therefore, Reese only touched him in extreme moments.

Which happened a second later when John suddenly stiffened, tilted his head _back the way they’d come_ , and suddenly grabbed a fistful of Harold’s shirt and hauled him forward and around the corner.  There was the resounding roar of a gun going off behind him barely a second later, and Harold shouted involuntarily.

Reese followed him around the corner like a wave of muscle and bone, his own gun already off his back and in his hands.  “Are you hurt?” he demanded, the quiet rasp of his voice strained with impatience now.  This wasn’t a leisurely question that H could answer or ignore as he chose.

“No,” Harold barked back before actually checking.  Thankfully, after patting himself and mentally looking for any points of pain, he found his answer to be true.  “No, I’m all right.”  Then his eyes lifted behind his glasses and caught sight of something else, and he paled.  There was red blooming along Reese’s side.  “But you’re not,” he said with sharp anxiety.

“Just a graze,” Reese grunted, then tried to lean around the corner and shoot.  He was immediately pushed back by another bullet as it hissed threateningly by.  He made a face that looked more annoyed than afraid, but since any expression at all was rare for Agent 008, Harold felt his worry climb higher.  This time, when the Hound tried to shoot, he didn’t look, just angled the long weapon around the corner and pulled the trigger, immediately loosing a whole spray of bullets.

“Who is it?” H demanded.  He wanted information; his brain craved data, something to let him understand the situation and compartmentalize the danger.

He expected a generic answer or vague description – or perhaps a correction to say that there was more than one attacker.  What Q-branch’s second-in-command did not expect was for John to mutter back with as close to annoyance as he ever came, “It’s Root.  Apparently she got tired of chaperoning the Director-General and decided to go looking for some target practice.”

Two things were bad signs with John: breaking their rules about personal space, and extended talking.  If John Reese was doing either of those things, then he was outside his comfort zone, or otherwise under pressure.  His side was still bleeding, staining through his tan jacket, and it only took a glance for Harold to see the tightening of the agent’s jaw.  “We need to get out of here,” H said flatly.

“No, _you_ need to get out of here,” Reese, usually one of the most obedient agents in Eigengrau, argued back unexpectedly.  Another single bullet rang down the hallway, making Harold flinch hard.  John repeated his action from earlier, presumably keeping Root back, before he risked a glance back at Harold and gritted out, “You said we had a job, Harold.  Someone needs to slow her down while the other gets that key, and I don’t remember you being all that keen on firearms.”

To be honest, Harold hated them.  Now, though, the prospect of going on without 008 was terrifying.

Before he could open his mouth to start an argument, however, Root’s voice echoed down the hallway, chiding but sweet, “That was a foolish thing to do, John.  All I was going to do was take out Harold’s good leg – just to slow him down so I could talk to him.  It’s not like his leg works all that well anyway.”

“Seems like you aimed a little bit higher than his leg,” Reese observed without getting particularly excited.  Harold shivered and felt his eyes drawn inexorably to the Hound’s bleeding side again – the bullet had grazed his lower ribcage.

“What can I say?  You distracted me.  But no hard feelings – we can still talk.”

Now Reese’s voice shifted octaves, going subtly into a warning timbre that Harold usually only heard on the comm-lines during missions.  “Not gonna happen.”  His body language changed, feet shifting slightly, subtle movements that turned him from decently dangerous to determinedly deadly.  Part of what Harold liked about Reese was that the Hound killed only when he had to, not because he liked it – but sometimes, just sometimes, he killed by choice.  Instead of waiting until the choice was taken away, until he was backed into a corner and it was self-defense, 008 would become the hunter, and it was truly terrifying.

Because as much as he avoided doing it, appearing efficient but lackluster on most of his jobs, John Reese was _good_ at what he did.

“Go, Harold,” he repeated, snatching another glance back, making eye-contact even though it meant running the risk of being caught unawares by his opponent.  Harold knew that his own eyes were wide and scared, because he saw something sad and regretful flash over Reese’s grey gaze.  The man was more capable of sympathy than most people gave him credit for.  The Hound tried for levity, “Don’t worry.  I’ll catch up.”

Root was growing impatient, her voice rising as she called, “Harold!” and shot again.  This time bits of plaster flew, and Reese flinched back with a grimace.

“I’m really not in a mood to argue about this,” Reese muttered.  His deepening frown was putting brackets on either side of his mouth, making him look older and more worn, even as his eyes glinted with something fresh and fierce.  As terrifying as it was to see 008 at his worst, it was also breathtaking, and Harold was torn about whether to run for the hills or stay rooted where he was.  When the Hound finally snapped, “GO!” however, Harold nearly jumped a foot in the air and finally got moving.

All he could think was that this was how all the heroes died in movies: gloriously like martyrs, while their loved ones ran tearfully off into the distance.

Well, Harold sure as hell wasn’t about to cry, and he refused to think that this was Reese’s final dramatic exit.  Clutching his meager bag of things and cursing his bum leg with every step, Harold got moving at the best pace he was capable of even as the gun battle intensified behind him.

It wasn’t until Harold had turned three hallways that he realized he had no idea what route John had been taking them on.  He’d talked about not going in the front entrance, but that was where Harold had been instinctively going, and he hissed a few foul words before considering his options.  He was already panting, and his leg was threatening to mutiny on him.

~^~

Q startled awake as the sound of a ragged, animal shout tore through his sleep, but before he could reflexively thrash or sit up, he felt a firm hand fisting the material of his shirt and pullover.  The grip near his collar pushed down, and Q was fuzzily aware that his right ear was pressed against James’s thigh.  The man’s belaying hand with its firm fistful of material brushed Q’s other ear, somehow managing to be more calming than threatening.  “Shh,” James hushed absently.  A glance upwards showed Q the underside of Bond’s stubbled jaw as the Hound gazed off towards the other room, focused and alert.

As Q became more alert as well, he found that he could hear distant murmuring now that the single cry had died down.  It sounded like Hannibal, soothing, “Will.  Will, just breathe with me.”  Q’s brain wasn’t ready for that: Hannibal being soothing.  Giving his head a shake and making a face, Q groaned and went slack against the floor again.  Sleep had been delightfully uncomplicated, even if he didn’t quite remember when he’d decided that James’s lap made a good pillow.  But now he had to be awake, where things were confusing.

“I’m going to check what’s going on,” James’s quiet voice caught Q before he decided to go back to sleep again.  Still muzzy, Q wasn’t sure how to respond or react to that.  Thankfully, 007 didn’t seem to expect him to, and the hand holding the Quartermaster down repositioned itself on his upper arm.  Soon Bond’s other hand was digging underneath the weight of Q’s body, levering him up slowly, his hold firm but surprisingly gentle.  Q’s various aches and bruises came alive anyway, and he whined involuntarily before he bit it off.  Apparently James heard it, because while Q’s eyes were still closed, he felt Bond let go of him but then brush fingertips over the boffin’s hair.  Q snapped his eyes open again to find the agent crouching in front of him, expression watchful in an almost avian way – like a hawk canting its head at something new.  His hand had already dropped, and he didn’t explain the touch.  “Stay here.  I’ll be right back,” James ordered a moment later.

As Bond stood, Q cleared the sleep out of his throat and commented, “The last time you said that, I had to save you from Agent 004.”

James turned back, a powerful shadow in the dimness, the emergency lighting giving his hair an almost metallic golden sheen.  Q thought he saw the quirk of a wolfish smile.  “I’ll have to make sure not to repeat the experience with Agent 003.”  He didn’t wait for a rejoinder before turning and presumably going to find Hannibal and Will and the source of the quiet talking that Q could now just barely hear.  Realizing that the possibility of another ‘Silva episode’ was entirely possible, Q pushed his glasses up against his forehead and rubbed at his eyes, trying to wake up a bit so that he wouldn’t be completely useless.  He felt fully awake by the time James returned, his easy posture and leisurely step indicating that nothing was amiss.

“What was it?” Q asked, making to stand.  He made it – barely.  Everything still ached from his beating… how long ago had it been?  It felt like a century already, and the loss of regular night and day was beginning to mess with his otherwise impeccable internal clock.

“Hannibal’s friend has nightmares,” James said with a shrug, and Q wasn’t sure what was harder to process: that the problem was so benign, or that James had just called Will Graham Hannibal’s _friend_.  “Come on.  Since we’re all up, we’re going to start moving.”

A bit disbelieving, Q got his satchel together to sling gingerly over his shoulder again, then slowly queried, “So… Hannibal is still on board?”

“He hasn’t attempted to murder us yet,” was the obvious answer, stated bluntly, like it explained everything.

Q remarked dryly, “You keep saying these phrases that are meant to be reassuring, but they somehow always have words like ‘murder’ in them.”

What he got in response was a smug chuckle, proof positive that 007 was doing it on purpose.  The man’s hand moved, and Q barely managed to free up his hands in time to catch something at it was tossed to him – a bread roll, as it turned out.  “How’s this for reassuring then?  You won’t have to walk hungry today.”

The flaky sensation of the crust and the warm, yeasty smell was just about orgasmic.  Q inhaled, then said with delicately measured approval, “Better.”  He started eating to save himself from further conversation, even as the angle of Bond’s head caught the light and revealed a triumphantly pleased expression – like a cat that had gotten all the cream.

Bond meandered closer as Q leaned back against the wall and made quick work of the bread, and Q let him.  There was little point in maintaining any sort of personal space by this point, and Q was coming to find the Hound more of a comfort than a threat, his terrible bedside manner notwithstanding.  “On the way to Q-branch, Hannibal and I might range out ahead from time to time,” James confided, and Q stopped eating, the bottom falling out of his stomach for a second.  James was quick to go on, however, “Just to scout for trouble.  Don’t worry, Q, we’ve both guarded assets before – and while I’m not sure how useful Graham will be with his shoulder, he’ll probably hang back with you, so you’ll have that measure of security.”  James added a moment later, looking undecided, “Will Graham is apparently a profiler, but Hannibal reassures me that he’ll be useful in a fight.”  

“And do you think Graham’s a threat?” Q asked, just because no normal person would tolerate Hannibal Lecter – unless there was more to them than met the eye.

“I think _everyone’s_ a threat,” Bond shrugged, “but I think so long as Lecter cares about Graham’s life the same way I care about yours, then we’ll be fine.  I may have a hard time killing another Hound, but if Graham hurts you for any reason, I sure as hell can end Graham.”

By this point, Q had one bite of bread left on his hand, but was just staring at the agent next to him.  “You have,” he said, “truly disturbing logic.  Has anyone ever told you that?”

James’s hand reached out and snatched up the last piece of bread, popping it into his mouth and proceeding to talk around it, “Q, in case you haven’t noticed, _normal_ logic got tossed out the window the moment C gave us Hounds the metaphorical keys to the city.”  He swallowed, then shifted so that one forearm was braced on the wall by Q’s head, putting them very close along Q’s left side.  James was looking at Q with a frank expression, close enough that Q could see an old scar just barely marring the contour of 007’s left eyebrow.  “Normal logic like yours says that this is a homicide waiting to happen – my logic says that the more killers you have in the same room, the lower the kill-rate is.”

“That makes literally no sense.”

Hannibal’s voice startled them both, as it interjected from the doorway, “Pardon me for interrupting, but in a certain morbid light, it does.”  James had twisted away from Q the moment he registered the new presence, his protectiveness given away as he naturally placed himself in front of the Quartermaster.  Hannibal was polite enough to pretend not to notice.  In fact, his smile was dry and mild, the look of a boring old family friend rather than a mass murderer.  “While it’s true that we high-Pass agents have tried to kill one another on occasion, those have largely been situations that fell under one of two categories: one…”  Hannibal held up one finger even as the shadows behind him revealed Graham, still looking rough around the edges like a cat that had been pulled out of a sack backwards.  His eyes were bright and watchful, though, curious as Hannibal kept speaking.  “…Situations where the gain has outweighed the cost.  For example, I found myself recently working with an absolutely despicable new agent who had somehow earned the title of 019.  He was hardly dangerous enough for the position, and his company was intolerable.”  Hannibal tilted his head, the calm smile remaining as if he weren’t talking about a past murder of his own comrade.  “I waited until I knew back-up would be arriving, just in case.  What wounds I received were treated by Eigengrau’s medical team.  The gain of not having to work with him again was worth the relatively low risk to my person.”

While Q stared, horrified, James chimed in as if it were natural, “Whenever Hart and I have fought, it’s been here on the island.  That which does not kill us-”  He folded his arms and moved so that now he was occupying the wall next to Q, relaxed and almost indolent, the tension from before all gone.  “-Won’t lead to a lingering death, because we know that there are doctors on hand.”

“You said there were two categories,” Will spoke up, when it was clear that Q wouldn’t.  Hannibal tilted his head just enough to glance at the other man over his shoulder, politely listening as Will finished, “What’s the other occasion when you two might… you know… consider assassinating one another?”

Hannibal and James exchanged glances; James shrugged.  They may as well have been discussing a recipe that they both cooked slightly differently but still both enjoyed.  James took up the narrative, “The other situation would be when circumstances absolutely force it.  I’ve killed people before even when the odds were against me, but only when my back was to a wall.”  James lifted a hand and tugged down the collar of his shirt, revealing the collar and saying with decidedly more of a growl to his voice, “Or when _this_ made me do it.  I’ve made some supremely stupid kills that weren’t my choice, because I’d been told that I’d die if I didn’t.”

Bond had been looking determinedly at Will as he’d spoken, but there was no way he’d missed the way Q was now staring at him.  The Quartermaster was still horrified, but the feeling had taken on a different flavor, and by the time 007’s eyes flicked reluctantly to him, the boffin looked… humbled.  Disturbed.  He’d moved so that he wasn’t just leaning against the wall but was facing 007 now, although their proximity hadn’t changed.  As Bond met Q’s eyes, there was something in those pale blue depths that asked, ‘ _Do you understand me now_?’  At the same time, there was such resignation in those eyes, as if to convey a second message beneath the first: ‘ _This is the way_ my _world turns_.’

Q abruptly wanted to scream.

Instead, after a tense moment in which he felt every muscle in his body wind up like abused springs, Q spun on his heel.  Facing the exit, he gritted his teeth for a moment, composing himself and aware that he had two Hounds watching him as well as the wild card, Will Graham.  “We’re going to Q-branch now,” he said stiffly.  This was a known fact already, but no one pointed out the stating of the obvious.  Eyes going flinty, Q straightened his glasses on his nose and continued as much to himself as to everyone else, “If you can get me there, then I’m going to do something… about this.”  He gestured vaguely but with clear wrath at most of the room – presumably at Eigengrau and what it stood for.  Unlike when he’d promised to free Hannibal before, there was determination and anger in Q’s voice instead of desperation.

For a moment, James just stared at Q with a kind of quiet wonder hidden deep behind his eyes.  Then he turned, finding Hannibal calmly and unreadably watching him in turn.  The two Hounds stood a moment like that, certain things tacitly understood by men with their shared histories.  In tandem, they nodded, while Will looked on in wary surprise.

Hannibal merely put a hand on the profiler’s good shoulder, before turning to Q and dipping his head in a shallow almost-bow.  “We’ll see you safely to your branch.  You have my word.”

That was two promises Q was carrying now, from men who could have snapped him in half: James had promised to be his ally for three days, and now Hannibal had promised to keep him safe through the gauntlet of Eigengrau, until they reached Q-branch.  It all felt as flimsy as a bridge of eggshells beneath his feet, but he’d take what he could get.  Looking at everyone and seeing readiness in James’s eyes, aloof interest in Hannibal’s, and resigned acceptance in Will’s, Q nodded back.  Not trusting his voice, he hiked his satchel up into a more comfortable position, checked that he still had the collar key (as well as his scalpel), and just started walking.

Almost immediately, the two Hounds fell into step flanking him, like a pair of sharks getting comfortable in the wake of a ship.  Graham trailed along further behind, an incongruous shadow that muttered, “This is insane…”

“So I’ve been told,” Q muttered mostly to himself in return, only to hear 007’s knowing chuckle from his left.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm utterly falling in love with the idea of Will getting lost in another personality and getting into a fight with Hannibal and James. To be fair, though, I'm rather in love with any new variety of chaos that I can possibly toss into this fic *sprinkles chaos-flakes into the recipe*
> 
> At this point in the game, my plan for the rest of this story is relatively flexible, so while I can't acquiesce to every demand (and some characters I'm not as skilled with as others, and therefore can't play with as much), I'm happy to read ideas for upcoming chapters of this :)


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec and Mallory make their way to Medical... and things do quite go as planned. Sherlock and John had also started their journey, but Sherlock very quickly has some explaining to do, because he most certainly knows more than he's told John so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a plotty chapter, although there's also a solid dose of fighting in it - and some cameo appearances that might amuse some! There's also a bit of slow-build going on, as some of our 'teams' start to grow closer <3

Gareth Mallory was a tough man, Alec had to give him that.  Even with Alec to lean on, walking was clearly difficult, but Mallory didn’t complain – just gritted his teeth and bore it.  Still, they had to move with extra caution, because they couldn’t afford another confrontation.  Alec was a skilled bodyguard, but he didn’t like it when his asset wasn’t mobile, meaning a swift escape was ludicrously impossible.  Although, looking at M’s set expression, Alec didn’t doubt that the man would give running a go if he needed to.  There was something to respect in that. 

“You know,” Mallory grunted, making quiet conversation even as he winced his way through another step, “I don’t even care if there’s anything in Medical besides painkillers at this point.  So long as I can die in a morphine-induced haze.”

Someone else might have been disturbed by the morbid humor, but Alec was able to chuckle before teasing back, “Careful there, King, or you’ll ruin your reputation with talk like that.  If people knew that their boss was that keen on drugs-”

“They can fucking deal with it,” was the interjected growl. 

Mallory dug his fingers into Alec’s far shoulder as they took another step together, and Alec was idly thankful for his own high pain-tolerance – because M had a grip like a vise.  The next thing that Alec idly noted was that Mallory had stopped bristling at the nickname, which for some odd reason made this whole situation minutely better. 

“Language,” Alec mocked, a second before a sound caught his attention and he froze.  He opened his mouth to tell Eigengrau’s leader to shut up for a second and let him listen, only to note that M was already doing that – perhaps Mallory had been out of the game awhile, but his training was still there.  Jaw still clenched from pain, Mallory didn’t ask why they’d stopped, but instead looked around with grim, soundless wariness.  The two of them probably looked like flawed mirror images.  Big, tense-as-hell mirror images. 

“I heard something,” explained Alec a moment later, keeping his voice to a cagy whisper, “but since I haven’t heard anything since, it either means it was nothing-”

“Or someone is trying not to be heard,” the other man finished.  By the jaded set to his eyes, he was clearly betting on the latter – if only because lately had been a series of worst-case scenarios come to life.  Still, the man was skilled at keeping a stiff upper lip, so all he said was, “Suggestions?”

“A detour,” Alec responded grudgingly.  He met Mallory’s questioning gaze and shrugged, “At least until I can be sure that no one is following us, I want to put you somewhere safe.” 

Mallory had the moxie still to deadpan, “I officially feel like luggage.”

“ _Valuable_ luggage,” Alec amended, and got a thoroughly unimpressed look for his troubles.  Forcing a grin in return (trying to ignore how pale Mallory was starting to look, either from the strain and the pain or because of something worse), Alec got them moving again, trying his best to listen to the world around them as they made slow progress down darkened halls. 

Unfortunately, even with the Hound straining his senses and M doing his best to endure his pain quietly, they didn’t hear anything until it was too late. 

At the last second, Alec heard footsteps, but before he could even turn there was a body crashing into him from behind.  The impact knocked everyone over, and Mallory’s cry of pain was sharp and harsh; the brittle call of a wolf being shot.  Alec instinctively turned to check on him, but found that he had other problems, their attacker now trying to put him in a sleeper hold.  On his belly on the floor, already winded, Alec didn’t have a lot of leverage – but Mallory must have done something, because there was a sharp curse spoken in an American accent and suddenly the weight across Alec’s back lessened.  Instincts honed to a razor sharpness, 006 didn’t miss a beat.  Releasing a snarl of his own, he arched and twisted, breaking free of the arm locked around his neck. 

He wasn’t quite able to reverse their roles entirely, unfortunately, their attacker being surprisingly quick.  Alec immediately thought of Lorraine or David, the two Hounds he’d been worried about earlier – but neither of them had this accent, Lorraine was lighter than this, and if David were attacking them, he’d have chosen sniper tactics rather than a close-up brawl…  Mind rapidly computing information on an instinctual level, Alec managed to twist to his knees, his own weapon in hand.  He didn’t have a lot of ammo, but before he’d even gotten a proper look at his attacker, he was using the gun as a blunt instrument.  Despite how unplanned the motion was, Alec still very nearly clocked 015.  Fifteen was an American import to Eigengrau by the name of Solo, if Alec recalled correctly, and while he was in no way the most vicious fighter of Eigengrau’s Hounds, he was definitely one of the sneakiest.

As was proven a moment later as Solo – a very handsome, black-haired fellow with an expressive face and (usually) a quick smile – dodged Alec’s stroke only to then grip his gun hand.  It became a struggle for the weapon – and then a struggle for another weapon as Solo’s quick eyes somehow saw the knife on Trevelyan’s belt.  Alec had armed himself as much as he possibly could, but suddenly that was becoming a liability as Solo got the knife unsheathed.  Alec had nearly gained the upper-hand by getting above 015, but suddenly he had a knife swinging at him, forcing him to rear back with a roughly barked curse.  Even with 006’s reflex speed, he still felt a slashing sting against the back of his left upper arm, and he heard Mallory bark his name. 

Solo’s blue eyes were very wide, the kind of gaze seen in either in thrillseekers or people who were absolutely terrified – it was a thin line.  Still on his back but now armed with a knife, the American panted, “Hey, I just wanted a weapon, friend.  There’s nothing to get excited about!” 

While Solo had definitely succeeded in getting a weapon, he was still the one bringing a knife to a gun-fight, and Alec responded only with baring his teeth and bringing his gun to bear again.  Solo’s eyes widened comically and he rolled at the last second, the bullet perhaps grazing him but clearly not stopping him, as he coiled his athletic body and leapt right at Trevelyan again.  Alec started swearing in Russian now, because the only time it was useful to bring a knife to a gunfight was when the fight was carried out in close-quarters – now that they were wrestling again, no distance between them, Alec’s gun lots most of its advantage.  Solo was perhaps lighter than Alec by a bit, but with a knife in one hand, he definitely had more bite to back up his bark, and 006 began trying to think of ways to regain possession of the knife before A) getting stabbed, B) also losing his hold on his gun, or C) some deadly combination of both.  The fact that Solo didn’t even seem interested in M suddenly became immaterial.  In fact, if anything, it was going to be bloody embarrassing if 006 died because he was attacked by someone who was just desperate to steal a weapon…

“Alec!” Mallory shouted a bit louder this time, right before Alec heard _someone_ _else_ swearing in Russian.  Solo heard it, too, and actually froze for a second, head lifting.  He’d once again wrestled himself on top of Alec (this time with the blond-haired Hound supine and Solo sitting on his stomach), and hand one hand on Alec’s right wrist to hold back to gun even as Alec mirrored the grip on Solo’s knife-hand.  Suddenly, though, 015 had other problems, as a gun went off and Solo just barely dodged death again. 

“Fucking shit, can’t you just give up!?” Solo yelled, rolling on the floor as an honest-to-god growl echoed own the hall.  Alec stayed where he was, confused and panting on his back, as 015 lost interest in him.  “I swear that whatever I did to offend you, it does not warrant anger like this!”  In response, another shot rang out, and Solo just barely scrambled around a nearby corner in time.  There was a bit of blood smeared on the floor, but it was hard to tell if it was Alec’s or Solo’s – and even if it was the latter, it wasn’t much.  015 was clearly a man with nine lives.  “Can’t we just discuss this like normal people over a glass of wine or something?”

Mallory thankfully wasn’t dead, as proven when a hand grasped Alec’s shirt-collar, making him jolt.  Fortunately, before 006 shot someone out of reflex, he saw M’s strained features, and realize that the man was trying to pull him over to a nearby room.  As Alec scrambled to comply, the new-comer came into view, the emergency lighting catching a scowling, angular face and ashy-blond hair.  It was another higher-numbered, newer Hound, and the only reason Alec knew him was because they were both Russian-born.  Beyond that small connection, Alec knew that the newcomer, 014, was one of the most vile-tempered Hound in all of Eigengrau. 

Getting himself and Mallory out of sight around the corner, Alec gasped at the pain in his arm.  The cut was bleeding more than he’d realized, staining his jacket darkly all around the torn fabric and gashed skin.  M panted next to him, “Was that 014?”

Alec nodded numbly.  They could still hear Solo trying to bargain with the man – although the only responses were either gunshots or words in thunderous, angry Russian.  “If it helps, Fourteen can be a bit single-minded when he’s riled.”  Another gunshot; another yelp from Solo.  Alec almost wanted to laugh, if the situation weren’t so ludicrously dangerous.  “And I think that the American has Kuryakin riled as hell.”

Instead of responding to that, Mallory glanced over at Alec, brows furrowed, and asked, “How badly are you hurt?”

“Not so badly that I can’t take advantage of a spot of good luck,” Alec grunted, and rolled to a kneel.  His immediately got one of M’s arms over his shoulders again, and lifted them both to stand, able to feel the way that M’s body tautened with pain even as Mallory managed to stifle all but a low moan.  “Come on.  I think I know a place where we can catch out breath.  We’ll leave those two star-crossed lovers to duke it out on their own.”

Both men more battered than before, awkwardly stumbling and panting, Trevelyan and Mallory made their escape out another door while the Fourteen and Fifteen continued to try and loudly settle their differences in the hallway behind.

~^~

 “Is this really necessary?” Sherlock asked, eying the cuff around his left wrist, which connected to a plastic-wrapped cable strung between him and John; the Handler was just now hooking the latter end to his belt.

Unperturbed by the clear displeasure in Sherlock’s low voice, John replied without missing a beat, “Until either you magically become low-Pass or your collar starts working again, yeah, it is.”  John looked up from connecting the second cuff, and when he met Sherlock’s angrily narrowed eyes, there was actually an unexpected amount of sympathy there.  The shorter man lowered his volume and tipped his head subtly to the other guards, who were standing some ways away but eying the newly freed Hound warily.  “Mostly for them.  It was either take you out on a leash, or not take you out at all.”

Following John’s gaze, Sherlock looked at the other bystanders… and made a humming noise of regretful understanding.  “People are too predictable,” he muttered almost angrily, and when he looked back to see John’s brows beetled questioningly, Sherlock elaborated at a slow drawl, “Ruled by fear of what they cannot understand.”  Drawing himself up proudly, Sherlock finished, “It’s a reaction that I’ve become accustomed to.”

Perhaps Sherlock’s posturing and tone were pompous, but John didn’t comment.  Instead, he looked at the Hound with perhaps more understanding than one might have expected from a lowly ex-soldier, and restrained a wry, apologetic smile.  “Well, then let’s get moving before they can misunderstand you anymore, hmm?” he suggested helpfully, and while Sherlock only responded by way of an arch, dismissive sniff, something in the air between them seemed to settle and become more comfortable, and the middle Holmes brother fell into step behind John without any semblance of complaint. 

There were still a lot of complaints and arguments even as they were leaving; it was like running a gauntlet just to get to the door.  Everyone kept saying how much they worried that Sherlock would overpower John, take his gun – or that they’d be overwhelmed by the enemy numbers beyond the safety of Holding.  With an impressive amount of patient and calmness, John reassured everyone, and those he could not reassure… he ignored.  Sherlock, who was not a patient man, found this latter response the most sensible.  And amusing. 

However, all of the amusement ended after they left Holding.  The doors shut and were locked behind them with a certain sound of finality.  Sherlock shifted from foot to foot, rotating his wrist in its cuff.  “With communications down, we can’t call for back-up,” John reminded.

“All the more reason for me to be your ally rather than your enemy,” Sherlock snapped back, finishing in a tetchy grumble, “which no one else back there seemed capable of understanding.”  That settled – or at least as settled as Sherlock felt it needed to be – the taller man began striding resolutely forward as if they were in downtown London and late for an appointment.  “Come along now, Watson.  We don’t have any time to waste, and I need to get to the morgue.”

~^~

“When you said that you had a safe place in mind for us to regroup, I didn’t think you meant the morgue,” Mallory said, a bit bit breathless but still very clearly displeased. 

“Hey, at least you know that dead men won’t try to kill you when your back is turned,” Alec volleyed back, helping ease Mallory onto a table before slipping out from under his arm.  M made a face when he realized that he was sitting on a slab of stainless steal usually reserved for autopsies.  Alec for once decided to forego the opportunity to make off-color jokes and instead turn to barricade the door.  Another bonus of the morgue was that it didn’t have a wealth of exits.  After pushing a filing cabinet in the way of one entrance and pushing a broom through the door handle of the other, Alec headed off to begin ransacking drawers and trays, finishing frankly, “Honestly, this is the next best thing to Medical.”

Instead of pursuing the argument further, Mallory actually nodded, subsiding.  He looked exhausted and drained, and the dim emergency lighting somehow served to highlight the age-lines on his face, making him look older than he was.  All in all, as he sat on the edge of the autopsy table, he didn’t look good.  “It’ll be harder to find painkillers, since the dead obviously don’t need morphine,” he quipped without vigor, then said with a bit more focus, “but I imagine that needle and thread might be available for that gash on your arm.”

They’d actually paused along the way to deal with that as best they could.  It wasn’t a life-threatening injury, but it was painful and inconvenient, and after watching Alec gritting his teeth against it for five minutes, Mallory had insisted they stop.  Despite being in pretty poor shape himself, the head of MI6 was a man who was used to getting what he wanted – in this case, that meant removing this tie and relocating the loop of Trevelyan’s arm.  It had stemmed the blood, but would probably ruin the tie for good. 

Alec paused as if he would argue against his logic, but ultimately, he was growing tired, too.  He sighed and nodded, and moments later found exactly that: needle and thread.  It was thicker stuff than a Medical grade suture kit, but he was hardly worried about aesthetically pleasing stitches.  “Think you could lend me a hand?” the Hound asked hopefully.

“Part of me wants to see you try to stitch up the back of your own arm,” Mallory joked, but he was already nodding and beckoning Alec forward.  At this point, Mallory was wincing whenever he moved his torso, but he took the stitching supplies without any noise of complaint and sat patiently while the Hound stripped off his coat.  Beneath, he wore a short-sleeved tee, and the cut was right below where the fabric ended, although the redness had spread and smeared all over the white shirt anyway.

“And this is why I should never wear white,” Alec lamented, twisting to try and get a better look at the wound but also backing up closer to Mallory when the older man grabbed a handful of his shirt and gave it a tug.  Alec went from trying to see his wound to eyeing M expectantly instead, eventually quipping, “This is the part where you tell me that it’s going to hurt, and I reassure you that I’m heroically tough and tragically brave, so I can take it.”

It was surprisingly rewarding to see the usually stoic head of Eigengrau fight a smile.  His eyes were fixed on getting the needle and thread sorted, but he nonetheless deigned to reply, “Even without a local anesthetic?”

“I’d gallantly refuse to take it even if you had some on hand.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I try my best,” Alec volleyed back easily.  Immediately following, however, he braced himself, knowing full-well what a needle felt like when it was threaded through skin without any numbing agent available.  Leaned back against the table to Mallory’s right (his hip flush with the outside Mallory’s uninjured thigh, in fact), Alec gripped his left wrist in his right hand, and focused on staying as still as humanly possible. 

He still shuddered and sucked in a hissing breath at the first push and tug of the needle.  “Huh,” Mallory commented, and Alec focused on his voice, on what word would come next, “And here I thought I’d call your bluff and you’d cry like a child.”

“Told you I was the strong and-” Alec cut off as another stitch sparked another flash of pain, but went on doggedly, “-silent type.”

Mallory snorted.  “Strong I’ll give you, but you’re about as silent as a foghorn on a busy night.”

“I’m choosing to… focus on… the positive parts of that sentence,” Alec gritted out between flashes of pain.  Mallory was moving quickly, which either meant he was more practiced at this sort of thing than anyone would have expected, or he was sewing recklessly and messily in the hopes of just getting it over with quickly.  A bit worried that it was the latter, Alec barely resisted the urge to look back over his shoulder, but did ask warily, “Did your mother teach you cross-stitch, by any chance?”

“The Navy taught me, more like,” Mallory retorted with a hint of amusement. 

“No kidding?”  Anything was a good distraction.  So far as pain went, there were far worse things than being stitched up, but the problem was, there was no adrenaline now to numb the pain – sometimes Alec wondered if he preferred a gunshot wound in the heat of battle to the slow and boring agony of having a sharp piece of metal poked repeatedly through his skin afterwards.  “James – 007 – was in the Navy.”

Mallory replied in a tone that didn’t sound entirely joking, “Maybe if we all get out of this alive, we can exchange sailing stories.”  Perhaps it was just exhaustion and not empathy that softened Mallory’s tone, however, because after that, the head of Eigengrau signed and the pain stopped.  “Okay, that’s stemmed the bleeding.  Since I couldn’t exactly disinfect anything, you’ll probably have to deal with infection in the long-run – but considering we only have, what, two more days?  Two more days until C’s deadline runs out, I suppose that there is no ‘long-run’ to really worry about.”  He finished in a slightly maudlin tone that made Alec a bit worried, but he could understand where it was coming from, especially when he turned around to see M grimacing in pain and sagging where he sat.

Twisting to finally look at his arm as best he could, Alec made a pleased sound when he saw stitches instead of gaping skin.  He couldn’t see how neat the stitches were, but he wasn’t picky.  He continued to sit still as Mallory unexpectedly removed his own tie, looping it around Alec's arm and then tying it off, ensuring that the stitches wouldn't get snagged on anything. “I’ve always been a proponent of living for the moment anyway,” he chose to respond lightly, hoping it would lift the mood.

Unfortunately, at that moment, Mallory nearly folded in half with a sharp groan, arms clasped around his middle.  Despite the fact that there’d been no love lost between them only twenty-four hours ago, 006 immediately moved forward to grip the other man’s shoulders, steadying him with a gentle grip.  By the time the pain ebbed, the leader of Eigengrau had his head pressed against the Hound’s sternum, his breaths shallow and quick.  M had lifted a hand to grip one of Trevelyan’s elbows, and for a moment, the two just stayed that way, like two ships finding safety in the same harbor for a time. 

“We need to get you some help,” Alec murmured.  For once, there wasn’t an ounce of humor in his voice.  Physically, Mallory was a strongly built man, but now beneath his hands, Alec could feel the weakness in him.  Before, Alec might have seen that as something to exploit, but somehow he’d lost the taste for it, and he wasn’t sure if it was purely because the Quartermaster had given him logical reasons to protect this man. 

Mallory sucked in a slightly deeper breath, then winced.  “I’m fine,” he rasped.

“That is the most pathetic lie I think I’ve ever heard,” the Hound informed M bluntly, then used his grip on the older man’s shoulders to start easing him down onto the table.  Not surprisingly, M struggled against the movement, but all of the running and the pain had taken a lot out of him.  If he’d ever been a match for 006’s strength, he most certainly wasn’t now, and ultimately gave in with a grimace of distaste.  “Change of plans,” Alec said, once Mallory was lying on his side with a look of resignation and displeasure, “You stay here.”  He waved a hand to cut the other man off when M opened his mouth with obvious intentions of arguing.  “I can make better time on my own, and defend myself better.  Sorry to break it to you, King, but you’re a deadweight.”

Perhaps it was the use of the nickname, but Mallory’s frown twitched until it almost looked like a very crooked almost-smile.  Alec was beginning to realize that Mallory very rarely moved his face in what most people would call a smile – and if he did, it was only a political move, an upward tilt of lips designed to please peers and higher-ups.  This wry twisting of the man’s mouth was his actual smile.  “I’m not sure which I prefer: when you’re insulting me or when you’re inappropriately complimenting me,” the man had just enough energy and spirit to say in return. 

Alec rewarded Mallory wit ha wink.  “Watch, eventually I’ll start doing both at the same time.  That’ll _really_ make things interesting.  In the meantime, though-”  Alec took his discarded jacket and spread it over Mallory, then found one of the sheets usually used on corpses.  He dragged it over despite M’s unhappy expression.  “-Play dead as if your life depends on it.”

Ultimately, Mallory ended up covered to his chin with strict instructions to lie flat and pull the sheet right over himself if he heard anyone coming.  There wasn’t any particular reason why someone would think to come to the morgue, but if they were perhaps looking for low-grade medical utensils like Alec had been, there was no way that Mallory was going to be able to bar the door after Alec departed.  Hiding and hoping for a lucky break was all they could do. 

Just as Alec got to the door, he called back, “King?”  Mallory, who had closed his eyes in growing weariness, lifted his head and fixed his gaze back on the Hound, who finished with a mixture of humor and sincerity, “I know I’m not the promptest Hound on the payroll, but I _will_ be back.”

There was a long and heavy pause in which Mallory just stared at Alec, something unreadable in his gaze.  Then, unexpectedly, he cleared his throat and said solemnly, “I believe you.”

Honestly, Alec had been expecting a witty retort, and the genuineness of the answer caught him off-guard.  Unbalanced – and with an unexpectedness warmth blooming in his chest – Alec gave a stiff nod, turned, and left.  He picked up speed almost immediately, a new sense of purpose giving energy to his limbs.  He didn’t give a second thought to Mallory’s tie, which he was now wearing like a knight wore a lady's favor. 

~^~

Sherlock’s genius wasn’t just that he was able to look at particular situations and take them apart in his head – not, the real power of Sherlock’s mind was that it was _always_ taking in data.  He analyzed everything, and even though it didn’t always make sense at the time, it meant that he inevitably began to see larger pictures that others didn’t.

“While some of the damage we’ve seen is directly the fault of high-Pass agents run out for revenge, there’s too much killing to be caused solely by that,” Sherlock said, as he and John came upon yet another string of bodies.  John was kneeling next to a middle-aged woman who’s neck had clearly been snapped; he draw his hands slowly over her eyelids, closing her sightless eyes, as Sherlock stood next to him and coolly observed everything.  “Considering the pure size of Eigengrau and the usual ratio of high-Pass agents to other employees, the only way that this body-count makes sense is if C has seeded quite a large number of vicious allies throughout Eigengrau’s regular workforce, probably over the span of months.”

John was still kneeling, head down.  Sherlock noticed this belatedly, and seemed to come back to himself, going from aloofly analytical to slightly-less aloof and bewildered.  “John?  Is it your knee?” he asked, but quietly.  Even as he asked, he had a nagging sense that that wasn’t it. 

When John replied, he didn’t answer Sherlock’s question, but instead said something in a voice so soft and low that Sherlock didn’t catch it.  Shifting his weight uneasily but also coming a bit closer, until he was standing right over the other man, the line between them completely slack, he said again, “John?”

John repeated himself a bit louder, and this time the words were audible as he said, “The Sybil System was supposed to protect us from this.”  Sherlock stiffened, because now that he could actually hear his companion, he knew that it was rage that had driven John’s voice to such a low pitch; the anger was like an anchor tied to John’s voice, dragging the volume down into someplace dark and cold.  The lanky consulting detective actually found himself sliding back a step, missing the irony of it as he became slightly frightened by something he didn’t quite understand.  John lifted his head, surveying the other two deceased individuals in the hallway and going on with chilling fury, “This kind of mindless killing is exactly what Sybil was created to stop!”

Since John’s voice had risen to a shout at the end – and Sherlock was exquisitely aware of how much they did not need to draw attention to themselves – the Hound got over his initial fear and hustled forward again, now bending down to sort of hover his hands over John’s shoulders in an effort to distract him without actually initiating physical contact.  “That’s why we’re out here,” he soothed quickly and quietly, “To find out what’s wrong.  You’re right, the Sybil System should be stopping this, but it’s not, and I promise you that I’ll get to the bottom of that.”

Sherlock was better at reading old evidence than he was at reading contemporary body language, but he still got a tingle of unease up his spine as he noticed the way John froze suddenly.  From this angle, standing behind John and leaning over him, he couldn’t read the man’s expression, but the sudden stillness and silence was full of foreboding.  Sherlock straightened uneasily, even as John turned to look at him with narrowed, shrewd eyes.  Sherlock knew that he wasn’t going to like what John said before the other man even opened his mouth.  “You said something about this, before.”  Canny eyes scanned Sherlock’s face, and John must have seen something despite Sherlock’s best efforts at appearing nonchalant, because soon Watson was continuing with more fervor in his words, “We were talking about how fucked up it was that Sybil wasn’t catching madmen, and you said you knew something about that – but then the Quartermaster started talking on the comms and everyone suddenly had other things to worry about.” 

By the time John had finished speaking, his tone was beginning to sound accusatory, and Sherlock was having a hard time meeting his eyes.  Up until now, Sherlock had tolerated the leash that kept him and his Handler connected, but now he was all-too-keenly aware of it, and how it made sure he couldn’t escape his increasingly angry-looking companion.  True, John an exceedingly short man by Sherlock’s standards, and not immediately intimidating, but something about John’s fiery expression right now made him a scary sight even while kneeling. 

“Spill, Sherlock,” John demanded, and stood up – or, rather, tried to stand up.  He’d been moving well enough on his right leg up until now, but the fact remained that someone had been bandaging that knee only hours earlier, and now it was showing.  John didn’t even make it up out of his kneel before his face creased in pain and he was sinking down again.  This time Sherlock did touch him, coming forward as if the leash had yanked him, grabbing John’s arms to ease his descent.  Sherlock ended up crouched while John sat, both of them a bit flustered. 

For a moment, silence ensued.  It was hard to tell if John was closing his eyes and breathing through the pain – or breathing through his anger.  Sherlock hoped for both, but just incase… he gathered his courage, and after a moment of clasping and unclasping his hands between his knees, he slowly spoke: “I do not make a habit of anthropomorphizing technology, and I do not believe in true artificial intelligence.”  John cracked one suspicious eye open, and Sherlock expected to be interrupted, but surprisingly, Watson stayed silent.  His other eye opened and his face settled into a guardedly expectant look that urged Sherlock to steeple his fingers uneasily and go on, “My younger brother, however – the Quartermaster, as I mentioned – is of a different mind.  He’s a technological prodigy, and has at times called us – our third brother as well – _favorites_ of Sybil.”

John was looking almost worried now, and like he wasn’t sure how to process what he was hearing.  “What are you saying, Sherlock?”

“I’m saying…”  Habit halted Sherlock’s tongue; no matter how much he disagreed on the reasoning behind his and his brother’s situation, he did agree that it was not something to be spoken about.  It was perhaps the only secret that Sherlock had never been driven to dig at and drag to the surface.  Now, though, as he looked up from his hands and saw the openness of John’s expression – all of his emotions so clear to read, his very thoughts almost distinguishable to Sherlock’s keen mind – he found the key to unlock his voice again.  It felt as though, if there were ever a time to talk about this, and a person to talk to about it, it was now with John Watson, ex-Army doctor, and the kind of man who willingly ran out into a warzone to help people even now.  “I’m saying,” Sherlock backed up and repeated more strongly, meeting John’s gaze unflinchingly now, “that the Sybil system occasionally allows certain distinguished individuals access to her systems.  Whether this is due to actual ‘favoritism’ of some form, or a glitch, I know it to be true because my brother has been able to access Sybil’s systems for years now.”

John’s brows lowered, and Sherlock literally saw the moment the other man’s brain jumped to the wrong conclusion.  “So you’re saying that your brother is behi-”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and huffed.  “No, I’m saying that if Sybil allowed access to my brother, he may not be the only one – and all it would take would be one moment of ambition to take advantage of that open door…”

~^~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to all - and for those who do not celebrate, I wish you a merry day regardless :)


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock are beginning to respect one another's skills - even as uncomfortable truths are wrestled with. 
> 
> Harold continues on his way to Q-branch, but unfortunately, he's destined to run into no less than three Hounds before he gets there...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late but hopefully not a dollar short ;) I hope that 2018 is getting off to a good start for everyone! I'm hoping to finally get time to update all of my neglected fics...

“What the hell, Sherlock?!”

While Sherlock was quite accustomed to being yelled at when he presented information not to people’s tastes (or above their understanding), he was slightly less used to the sensation of being slammed into a wall by a man so much shorter than him.  Despite being smaller, however, John had a surprising amount of power in him, and his grip on Sherlock’s shirt-collar was like a pit bull’s bite.  It was all really quite impressive… and inconvenient.  Sherlock realized the necessity of calming the blond-haired man down before further discussion could happen. 

Before Sherlock could gather the appropriate words to mollify his companion, John went on, snarling up at him, “You’re saying that there’s a breach in the Sybil System’s defenses?  How long have you known about that?”

Awkwardly, Sherlock fumbled the truth around in his mouth, trying to voice it in a way that would be most socially acceptable, “I’m not actually sure how long Siger has had access-”

“Dammit, Sherlock!” John cut him off.  Apparently, no, that wasn’t an acceptable answer.  Fortunately, after that last outburst, the smaller man seemed to cool.  Watson’s snarl because frustrated, then stiff, and then he dropped his head with a growl followed by a gathering breath.  Sherlock waited motionlessly as the hands in his shirt flexed, the fisted weight of them pressing against his collarbones until he felt as much as heard John exhale a slow sigh; the warmth of it hit Sherlock’s breastbone before John raised his head.  Warily, Sherlock noted that the Handler ( _his_ Handler) still looked mad, but there was a keenness behind John’s blue-grey eyes now.  With a spark of pleasant surprise, Sherlock realized that John was listening now.  He felt the need to voice his wonderment, head cocking as he observed, “So many people let themselves be blinded by anger when they’re surprised.”

“Yeah, well, it’s tempting,” John huffed, but after searching Sherlock’s face for a moment (whatever he was looking for, he must have found it), the shorter man let go and stepped back.  He didn’t go far, though, the cable between them still slack and John’s eyes still razor-sharp on Sherlock’s face.  “So you’d better bloody explain yourself in finite detail, before I decide to drag you right back to Holding.”

“Come now, John, that would hardly be productive,” Sherlock chided even as he deduced that the last sentence was all a bluff.  He read situations better than he read people, but right now, he could see that John’s anger had burned out – or at least it had collapsed in on itself, leaving only a small, banked ember that Sherlock thought that he could safely avoid.  Betting on that, Sherlock moved away from the wall and looked alertly around him, judging their location and already thinking a mile ahead while his words helped out those who were a mile behind, “While all three of us – Siger, myself, and our eldest brother Mycroft – are all geniuses in one way or another, Siger-”  Sherlock cut himself short, having caught a befuddled look from John out of the corner of his eye.  Signing, Sherlock realized that he’d lost his audience already, but strangely didn’t feel too much frustration as he sought and found the probable source of the confusion.  “Siger, your Quartermaster,” he elaborated with barely a hitch before plunging back into his explanation, “excels particularly in technological fields.”  They had to go this way; Sherlock turned his feet down the hall, and began walking.  He felt a tug against his wrist after two steps, but only for a moment, and then he heard John’s footsteps following after him.  “As much as it pains me to admit,” Sherlock grumbled, glowering, “I didn’t ask for details when first my brother brought up the topic of Sybil.”

“So you’re saying,” John said, from somewhere behind him, his tone curiously dry, “that this brother of yours mentioned that he could hack into the Sybil System, but you weren’t even curious?”

In reality, Sherlock had been consumed by curiosity.  The problem was, Siger had shortly thereafter started spouting technobabble, and the discussion fell so far outside of Sherlock’s wheelhouse that he’d ended up dropping the conversation out of sheer frustration.  Sherlock liked to think that he was a prodigy in all categories, but the maddening truth was that there were some gaps where he did not exactly excel.  It was reassuring to know that Mycroft was even worse with computers than he was.  Walking a bit more proudly, Sherlock made a little dismissive noise before replying archly, “It did not seem important at the time.”

“How the hell was that not important?”

“Let’s focus on the task at hand, John,” Sherlock reminded quickly.  He’d gotten distracted enough that his mental map had slipped, but fortunately, Watson was not entirely useless – in fact, he was perhaps more intuitive than Sherlock gave him credit for, because the shorter man appeared like a compact, suntanned ghost at his side and mutely pointed to the left as they came to a turn.  Sherlock’s map immediately reoriented, and he felt himself relax.  “What matters now is that the possibility exists of someone getting into Sybil’s systems and meddling with them.  Siger will know more, although finding him may be difficult.”

“Let me ask this then,” John said, walking just a step behind him and slightly to the right, seeming comfortable there even if his words continued to hold a hard edge, “If your brother has already proven that he can meddle with Sybil, then how are you so such that he’s not responsible?  I know when he arrived.  The timing is pretty suspect, you have to admit.”

“I know that Siger didn’t do this because I know my brother,” Sherlock replied simply, “Out of the three of us, he’s probably the only one with a legitimately low Psychopass.”  Ignoring for a moment that he’d subliminally admitted that he himself had a high Pychopass (and therefore probably deserved to be here), Sherlock finished, “If I had to guess, I’d say that Siger’s here to free _me_.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock could see that John was watching him closely now, his expression full of questions.  The only thing the smaller man ultimately said, however, was, “I don’t know, Sherlock… this seems a lot like a breakout.  Are you sure your brother didn’t just got a bit too far in his efforts to free you?”

For the first time, a niggle of doubt crept into Sherlock’s mind.  Siger was arguably the most moral of the Holmes brothers, but Sherlock also knew that his youngest brother could be intensely protective of those he felt kinship to – a condition strengthened by the fact that Siger had never made a lot of friends.  He valued those close to him all the more because of that.  At the same time, however, Sherlock was having a hard time consolidating the image of his prim, proper, cautious younger brother with the absolute chaos that had now consumed Eigengrau.  “I think,” Sherlock started slowly, growing more confident as he spoke more, “that it’s safer to assume that the madman at the center of all of this is the same madman who’s been glorying in this situation from the beginning.”

“C,” John filled in the blank. 

“Indeed.”

~^~

Sherlock wasn’t the only one having some directional issues, but for Harold, those issues were a lot more life-threatening – and his own ‘John’ wasn’t around to assist. 

“Mr. Reese, I sincerely hope that you’re doing better than I am,” Harold panted to himself as he hustled down the hallways, cursing his bad leg as well as the tendency of his thoughts to scatter under high-stress situations – like now.  Considering the circumstances under which he’d left Reese, however, it was highly likely that the Hound was faced with far worse than a bit of disorientation, and H felt bad for complaining, even if it was just to himself. 

He’d moved far enough that any gunfire he heard was distant, and he couldn’t even be sure that it was between Reese and Root anymore.  All of Eigengrau was in chaos.  To make matters worse, the place looked different under emergency lighting, and H was having a difficult time finding his way to the branch that he usually could find in his sleep.  It didn’t help that he kept thinking about Reese’s warning not to take the direct route – of course, by now, H was no longer sure whether he was taking the direct route or not, which was just plain bothersome… 

“Hey, Harold, long time no see,” a voice rang out from the shadows ahead, startling the older man and making him realize just how lost he’d gotten in his own thoughts.  It was terrifying to realize that this habit of mental pondering was very likely to get him killed.

Possibly within the next few minutes.

There were a limited number of people who knew that Harold Finch was called anything other than ‘H.’  John Reese knew his whole name, but there was one other Hound who worked closely with Reese, and who had overheard just the surname once: Sameen Shaw.  It had taken a lot of convincing to make her realize that Harold didn’t want his name spread around, but after a few talks (if any conversation with Reese could really be called a ‘talk,’ taciturn as he was), she’d realized that it was a secret.  Still, Harold had realized early on that Shaw was not exactly selfless by nature, and as was the case with many Hounds of Eigengrau, secrets were currency.  Shaw had been convinced not to spend that currency.  Now, though, the rules had changed – and her easy use of H’s first name made that implicitly clear. 

Harold came to an awkward stop, old injuries flaring up in his leg and causing him to stumble even as Shaw came into view as smoothly as steel sliding out of a sheath.  Shaw rarely hid what she was: dangerous.  Even those who looked at her deceptively slim, feminine frame tended to instantly realize that this woman wasn’t easy prey, as she carried herself with a self-assured determination.  She was like Root, in a way, but where Root glided like a cat or a snake, Shaw had the unapologetic stride of a Doberman Pinscher. 

And right now she was most certainly off her leash.

“Miss Shaw,” Harold greeted her back, his hands clutching his shoulder-bag in an effort to hide their shaking as he tried to think of what to do.  There would be no calling for help.  “I’m glad to see you doing…”  He looked her over, noting the gun in her hand, and the fact that her other arm was coated with a suspiciously dark substance all the way from her fingertips to her elbow.  Gulping, he finished unsteadily, “…well.”

Shaw raised a raven-dark brow, volleying back, “Are you, Harold?  Are you really happy to see that I’m still alive?  Because I was pretty sure that you’re playing for the other team.”

“There are no teams, Miss Shaw,” Harold firmly stated, with only the thinnest hopes that his words would make any difference.  He started trying to edge back, thinking of a turn a few strides back, and the fact that he’d thought he’d seen a doorway partway down it.  Doorways meant possible rooms to hide in, and maybe enough furniture to pile up against the door between himself and Shaw.  “This is a very chaotic situation, and I believe that it is safe to say that both you and I are ultimately interested in nothing more or less than surviving it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the woman pondered, looking upwards and shaking back a stray strand of dark hair.  Efficient as always, she’d tied the bulk of her long hair back into a neat tail, but rough fights tended to knock bits of it loose.  Shaw had clearly found a few such fights, and looked eager for more.  “Maybe you don’t want anything more than survival, but I’m finally starting to set my sights a little higher.

Reese and Shaw were both American, having been transferred together to Eigengrau.  That wasn’t the only reason that they were often paired together on jobs, however: besides that, both of them had a sort of ruthless efficiency about them that meant they were capable of working their way through messy situations with all the proficiency and steadiness of machines.  Shaw, though, Harold knew, had a bit more of a tempter than Reese.  Harold could hardly remember an occasion when he’d seen John Reese well and truly angry, and even then, it had been a quiet and controlled sort of anger. 

Shaw… burned a little hotter and a lot faster.  And she held grudges.

“I don’t know about you, Harold, but I’m pretty mad about this SmartBlood,” Shaw continued saying, starting to stalk forward, “But you wouldn’t know anything about that because you don’t have any of it in you – instead, you just sat back while that fucking Quartermaster put it in.”

As Harold stumbled again, he finally admitted what he hadn’t wanted to admit thus far: there was no chance of him running to safety before Shaw could catch up with him, especially not now that he’d heard the growing anger in her voice.  Reese had taken the injection of the Smartblood and all that it entailed philosophically, as he took most things; Shaw didn’t have a philosophical bone in her body.

She also had a disturbing habit of shooting first and asking questions later, Harold reflected even as he started to stutter out, “Now, Miss Shaw, there’s no need to-”

Harold cut off because despite the dim lighting, he’d seen a drastic change in Shaw’s expression.  Her dark eyes had whipped past him, and suddenly her temper had disappeared to be replaced by startled wariness, and her free hand had dropped down to her gun.  She didn’t raise it, but Harold could read the preparation for battle in every inch of her lean body, and somehow that was more terrifying than any horror-movie monster could be.  Stomach feeling as though it had dropped into his shoes, Harold stopped backing up, realizing with a growing sense of fatalism that running had just become even more improbable than before.  For a split-second, he hoped perhaps that it was Reese behind him – but no, Shaw had never really feared Reese. 

There was one entity that virtually everyone in Eigengrau feared, however.

Hannibal’s voice rolled, low and sweet, from roughly four paces behind Harold’s back: “Good morning, Miss Shaw – or, at least, I do believe it’s still morning.  Without consulting a clock it's hard to tell.”  Harold could just imagine the blandly polite expression to match the cultured tone, even though he knew that Lecter’s eyes would be as flat and emotionless as a reptile’s as he spoke.  “I sincerely hope you don’t intend to direct that gun at me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Shaw replied bluffly, although her eyes were bright with tension, “It’s been a slow morning, so there’s definitely a part of me that just wants to liven things up, you know?”

“How lively do you want it?” came a second low, male voice, and Harold jumped so badly that he nearly lost his footing entirely.  This was James Bond, his voice appearing like magic from even closer but more to the right – the hallway that Harold had been planning to desperately escape down.   This time H did manage to overcome the fear freezing his body, turning his head, only to bite back a whimper at the sight of 007 padding into view with a Walther already raised and ready in his all-too-capable hands.  Looking back, Harold saw that Shaw now looked downright uneasy, her survival instincts more than capable of evaluating the rising danger to her person.  Shaw was rash – but she wasn’t stupid, and like any good, light-weight predator, she was keenly aware of the repercussions of even a minor injury. 

If Bond and Lecter had teamed up, there wasn’t going to be anything _minor_ about any injuries they inflicted.

While Harold’s blood froze in his veins, realizing that he had no hope of escaping this situation, Shaw looked rapidly back and forth between the two other Hounds – then looked at Harold with what might have been, if this weren’t Shaw, pity.  “Nice chatting with you, Harold,” she dismissed him, and it sounded a lot like she was actually saying, ‘ _Nice knowing you_.’

With nothing more than that, Shaw turned and disappeared like a wolf back into its native dark.  Hannibal and Bond let her go, neither saying anything nor following her with gunfire.

Which left Harold to deal with them…

Slowly, heart in his throat and fear making him shake, Harold turned around.  Despite having known what he’d see, he still had to fight the urge to gasp at the sight that greeted him: two of Eigengrau’s deadliest Hounds, teamed up and standing only a few meters away.  A morbid part of Harold noted that they were oddly well-matched, with their self-assured and outwardly charming natures, rough good looks, and blond hair.  Hannibal’s broader and more imposing build was counterbalanced by the capable way in which Bond still held his weapon, looking terrifyingly competent.  Perhaps all of the recent events in Eigengrau were proof that Hell existed – but 007 and 003 teaming up was practically one of the signs of the Apocalypse.  War and Death riding in without the need for horses…

Suddenly, though, a new voice appeared – one that made H lift his head alertly, a spark of surprise and hope piercing through the crushing fear.  “H?  H, is that you?”  Suddenly another figure appeared out of the shadows of the hallway, the Quartermaster’s dark hair almost blending in so that he seemed to pop out of nowhere.  The most ludicrous thing, however, was that he didn’t spare the Hounds a second glance.  In fact, while Q kept his distance from Hannibal, he actually came up to 007’s side, placing a hand on one muscular shoulder.  It took Harold a shocked second to realize that he recognized that familiarity: he touched Reese in much the same unthinking, companionable manner.  “H, are you all right?” Q asked with more anxiety when his previous queries garnered no response.

“I think he’s a bit in shock, Q,” Bond quietly murmured with the kind of patience usually only seen in patient teachers or experienced mothers.  It was so strange to hear it from 007’s mouth that Harold nearly choked on air. 

Then, to make matters even odder, Hannibal – without actually taking his unblinking eyes of Harold – tipped his head a bit to call behind him, “Will?”

Obediently, a voice answered from further back, “There’s no one on our tail.  We’re safe for a bit.”  A bit more sarcasm entered the voice, “If you guys feel like having a family reunion in the middle of a warzone, be my guest.”

While Hannibal smiled an eerie but seemingly amused smile, Q darted forward and 007 relaxed out of his ready stance just a little.  Harold felt like he’d stepped into an alternate dimension somehow, one which may or may not have been more unsettling than the nightmare-zone that Eigengrau had recently become.  Q’s hands on his shoulders were comforting, however, and the Quartermaster’s expression held sincere worry.  “You’re safe,” Q said - very belatedly, H thought.

That somehow jumpstarted Harold’s tongue, although what jumped out of his mouth perhaps wasn’t the best opening statement, “Considering the company you’ve arrived with, that is perhaps one of the more questionable statements I’ve heard today.”  Harold immediately flushed with mortification, and stared over Q’s shoulders at the two Hounds – but neither seemed insulted.  In fact, Hannibal had turned to view the last member of their party, a medium-sized young man with dark hair almost as messy as Q’s.  “Nonetheless,” Harold smoothed out his last sentence, getting his wits slowly back, “I’m very grateful for you timely arrival.  I was afraid of what Shaw might do.”

“But you’re not hurt?” Q pressed, brows beetling beneath the fall of his hair.  For the first time, Harold noticed that Q himself looked a bit worse for wear, scuffed around the edges and with at least one bandage peaking out around his left wrist.  The fact that he was bandaged, however, said that he had someone taking care of him – Hounds, apparently.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Harold belatedly assured.  He gestured exasperatedly at his leg, however, adding, “Just the usual infirmities.”  His gesture seemed to get the group to relax a little (or perhaps Will’s assurance that they weren’t under attack was the cause of the easing of tensions), and the two Hounds lost some of their overt lethality.  They still lurked like sharks in the background, though, and when Bond also turned to regard Will for a moment, Harold leaned a bit closer to Q.  Dropping his voice, he asked, hushed, “Are _you_ all right?”

“Oh... well,” Q started, looking more embarrassed than worried.  At first, he seemed to be checking over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching them, but then it turned out he was just indicating an injury with his chin, “I got grazed by a bullet, actually, but mostly I’m just bumped and bruised.  Nothing mortal.”

“I was actually referring more to your companions,” H elaborated.  He watched as Q’s eyes widened belatedly in understanding. 

“You’re wondering how I’ve come to be traveling with 003 and 007, and whether I'm an unwilling hostage,” Q stated more than asked.  The latter Hound’s head swiveled the moment his numerical designation was said, despite Q having spoken in a voice that Harold would have sworn was too quiet to carry.  It made H tense, eyes wide with alarm, but Q sounded very at ease.  Unaware of the Hound now focused on him from a few meters behind, the young Quartermaster finished, “It’s a bit of a long story – but I can assure you, we’re all working together at the moment, voluntarily.”  Seeming to truly notice Harold’s fear for the first time, Q said a bit more softly, one hand returning to Harold’s right shoulder, “We’re all safe.”

“We might not be for much longer,” Bond’s voice cut in.  He was standing between the two groups of Q and H, and Hannibal and Will, and was apparently eavesdropping on both.  He tipped his chin in the direction they’d come, “There’s a bit of noise getting louder from behind, and I don’t trust Shaw to just disappear for good.”

“To be fair,” Hannibal added, tone diplomatic, “she has highly qualified survival instincts.  She might have sped to safer waters.”

007 angled his head, considering, then abruptly conceded with a nod.  “True.”

Not wanting to get bogged down in a philosophical debate about relative wisdom in a homicidal madhouse, H gripped his courage in both hands and raised his voice to state all at once, “I need to get to Q-branch.  I deeply appreciate your intervention, but I really must get there.  If you could point me in the right direction, I’d be very grateful.”

Q’s expression brightened unexpectedly.  He smiled and looked back to Bond of all people, although the Hound merely narrowed his eyes in mild wariness.  “We can do you one better,” Q said, turning back to H, “We’re heading there ourselves.”

“Great.  Now it’s a party,” Harold thought he heard the one called Will mutter.

In response, Hannibal reached out a hand, placing it on Will’s back as he murmured, “Hush, Will.”  Surprisingly, despite a bellicose look, the dark-haired man complied, seeming to sag back for a moment against the hand.  It was officially the eeriest and most unexpected interaction Harold had seen in his entire life.  He wondered if perhaps no one had thought to tell this Will character that Hannibal was a cannibal. 

Now those approaching noises were evidence to everyone – shouting and gunshots.  Bond tensed up again, and while Lecter remained outwardly calm, a coldly violent light lit his eyes as he turned an ear towards the sound.  It seemed that Bond was in charge, at least at the moment, since he was the one who frowned and finally spoke in a quiet but commanding tone, “Q, go on ahead with Will and H.  Hannibal and I will deal with this and catch up with you.”  Just as Q opened his mouth, 007’s eyes turned to him with the uncanny accuracy of laser-sights, and the Hound cut him off, “Don’t argue.  Go.”

Q’s mouth snapped shut, and something complicated clashed across his eyes behind his glasses.  Whatever he was feeling, however, it ultimately settled into acceptance, as he pursed his lips and turned.  “Come on,” Q whispered, circling over to Harold’s bad side and silently offering support.  Usually self-conscious about his limp, H gladly accepted the help now, having had his fill of being disabled.  Will didn’t catch up immediately, and seemed to be talking to Lecter again, but this time Harold didn’t catch the substance of their discussion.  He was with them after a few steps, however, coming up alongside Harold but for some reason only lifting his eyes to the level of Harold’s shoulder.

“I’m pretty handy with a gun, so I’ll go on ahead, I guess,” he murmured, his words stable despite the almost shy demeanor he was presenting.  Harold suddenly realized that Will hadn’t made eye-contact in this whole encounter – but the man _was_ holding a handgun like he knew how to use it, at least.  A muscle in Will’s stubbled jaw flexed in determination as he gritted his teeth, then finished, “Just in case Lecter and Bond are wrong, and Shaw didn’t go far.”

“She’s a good shot, and patient enough to ambush her prey,” Harold felt the need to inform, and for a second, Will almost looked at him.  Big, dark eyes flicked up to his and then away, but the words were acknowledged with a serious nod.  Then he proceeded on ahead of them, gun leading and pace measured but quick.

“He’s a profiler,” Q supplied in an undertone, noting Harold’s bewildered looks after Will, “He worked with the FBI in the States before shipping out here, so I think he knows what he’s doing.”

“What I want to know,” H whispered flatly as he leaned against Q as little as possible while also limping along as quickly as possible, “is how he ended up so closely in league with Hannibal Lecter.”

Q was watching Will now, too, a pensive expression on his face that wasn’t exactly encouraging.  “He was with Hannibal before James and I teamed up with them.”

“And how did you end up with 007?”

“That-”  An entirely too clear gunshot echoed behind them, causing Will and H to flinch and Will to momentarily turn around, body tense.  Q quickly got them moving again, finishing swiftly, “That is a long and fucked-up story that I will gladly tell you if we survive all of this.”

~^~

Watson wasn’t actually the most terrible partner to be tied to, Sherlock had decided.

While John sometimes jumped to stupid conclusions, as proven in their conversations thus far, he was a thoughtful listener overall.  Sherlock didn’t really envisage his thoughts being worth terribly much, but that was to be expected from anyone who wasn’t Sherlock.  To be fair, even when John didn’t have any particularly brilliant comments to add, he _did_ seem capable of being appreciative, which Sherlock realized was more than he usually got from an audience.  It was… surprisingly flattering, simply to be listened to in an interested manner.  And maybe John wasn’t even totally stupid: when next they found corpses, and Sherlock pointed out how this was definitely the work of a high-Pass non-agent, John was able to follow along decently well, at least insofar as the body’s wounds were concerned.  Having a military medic background made John quick to understand when Sherlock pointed out various nonlethal wounds, and how they had been inflicted for no other purpose but for the pleasure of the executioner.  Showing how Sherlock knew that this wasn’t the work of an Eigengrau Hound was a bit more complex, and John’s sadly normal level of acuity showed more, but that just meant that Sherlock got to show off a bit.  Despite the fact that they were talking about a dead body, John soon looked gratifyingly awed by Sherlock’s deductive skills.

That in and of itself was almost rewarding enough to make the subsequent gunfight worthwhile. 

“Get _down_ , Sherlock!” John snarled, grabbing Sherlock by the metal collar around his neck and exerting some of that unexpected strength of his to ensure that he was obeyed.

Irked at being yanked down like a dog, Sherlock nonetheless had priorities, and therefore instead of getting mad he just tried to get back up again, complaining, “But I want to see-!”

“If you want to see something, ask me, and I’ll describe it to you,” John barked back, and somehow his iron tone kept Sherlock down where his grip hadn’t.  Both of them were behind a toppled table in the mess hall, and John leaned over the top just enough to get off two shots.  Despite the fact that he only popped up for a few seconds, fired, then ducked back down, Sherlock heard a cry that said at least one bullet had hit its mark.  John was back to relative safety by the time anyone returned fire, but his eyes were alive with excitement masquerading as temper as he turned his focus back to Sherlock and finished his statement, “You’re not going to be an idiot and stand up just to get shot.”

Very, very few people called any Holmes boy an idiot, and Sherlock rankled at it.  However, there was logic in John’s words… and he was handling this in a decently competent manner.  Therefore, Sherlock decided to acquiesce, hunkering down where he was before demanding, “What do the shooters look like?”  He quickly added, “Any details will do,” realizing that this wasn’t exactly a situation where John could leisurely observe – and, surprisingly, Sherlock found that he was averse to the thought of John getting hurt just to gather him information. 

John straightened up enough to shoot again, and despite having to immediately duck down to avoid an answering hail of bullets, he came back with information: types of weaponry he identified easily, moving on to general body-types based on what he could see.  What Sherlock was most interested by was the clothing, however.

“They’re dressed like guards,” he deduced from the bits of data gathered. 

John’s jaw tightened, and he was at least pretending to be so focused on their attackers that he couldn’t look Sherlock in the eye.  “I guess so.”

Because Sherlock couldn’t help but needle, he asked his Handler in a low, slow tone, “You don’t find that odd?”

Sherlock could feel how all of this was destabilizing John’s world: the Handler wanted to believe in a clear line drawn between good and bad, preferably drawn by the omniscient entity known as the Sybil System.  He was being forced to see that it wasn’t that simple, however, and Sherlock could see how John was balking at the information.  “How many opponents have you faced dressed in the fashion of Eigengrau guards?” Sherlock pressed, not allowing John to ignore the rising truth.

Sherlock knew the answer by the clenching of John’s jaw, even before it unclenched to allow the stilted answer, “I don’t know.  A few.”  Another brief uncoiling of John’s posture, just enough to get off one shot; he was conserving ammunition, but still keeping their enemies at bay.  A wise if defensive move.  “I just assumed that I was dealing with Hounds who’d gotten their hands on some uniforms.  With none of the locks working, it wouldn’t be difficult to get a disguise.”

“But why bother?” Sherlock pressed on inexorably.  “There’s no need for subterfuge.  No need for a high-Pass individual to hide their intentions or who they are.”  Seeing that John was uncomfortable, Sherlock softened his tone; he wasn’t even sure why he did it, but he took the time, even amidst the pressing danger, to give the final blow gently.  “We are in Pandora’s Box right now, John – and there’s more than one danger seething here.  Regardless of how it’s happened, Hounds aren’t the murderous individuals hunting people through Eigengrau.”

For a second, it looked like John would yell at him and argue.  Angry, troubled eyes were now fixed on Sherlock, but the middle Holmes brother just met those eyes steadily, having watched John enough by now to suspect that he was a very empathetic individual – and therefore capable of reading the sincerity in Sherlock’s gaze.  Sherlock wasn’t lying.  He also trusted that John respected his intelligence, meaning he’d known that Sherlock wasn’t wrong either. 

Finally, John looked away, and in his sharp exhale Sherlock could see grudging acceptance.  “Dammit,” John muttered.  A ricocheting bullet made Sherlock flinch mightily, but John didn’t seem affected. 

“So what now?” Sherlock asked, reluctantly leaving that in John’s hands – because if John was willing to trust in Sherlock’s deductive reasoning, then Sherlock could in turn trust in John’s ability to handle their physical situation.  That was what John was there for, after all. 

“Well, according to your metaphor-” John grunted, reloading his gun, the movement of his jacket proving what Sherlock had already suspected: John Watson had come very much prepared.  There was a lot of ammunition on his person.  More intimidating than John’s forethought and competency, however, was the steely look of determination that had filled his eyes.  “-We’re that last little thing called Hope, and I for one would like to make sure that this Pandora’s Box doesn’t open up on the world.”

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Words are beginning to clash! Who shall meat up next?? *mysterious suspenseful noises as author fades into the distance and goes back to writing*


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John converge on the morgue - where they get a surprise. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Reese gets a surprise as well, in his fight with Root.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post! I've been at a friend's house, working on arts and crafts, and it put me behind. The 00Q RBB is also due to start posting soon, so I might have to spread out the postings on this fic to every other week so that I can post for the RBB ;)

~^~

“I still don’t know what you expect to learn in the morgue,” John said a bit disparagingly.  They’d managed to extricate themselves from the last firefight by the skin of their teeth, namely because John had done one thing their enemies had not: planned ahead.  Holding had a very respectable armory, and John had grabbed a very large amount of spare ammunition from its stores before leaving.  Their attackers had run out of bullets before John had.  When that had happened, Sherlock had realized it barely a beat before John, both of them exchanging significant looks.  Watson had proven himself an agile thinker at that point, and Sherlock was actually quite impressed: instead of wasting more bullets, or trying to take the fight to their enemy, John had started a verbal assault which was actually quite intimidating.  Despite being a rather small man, standing only as tall as Sherlock’s shoulder, John Watson was capable of leveling some very sincere and unsettling threats.

It wasn’t until they’d gotten their enemy to back down (John having made it very clear that any other option would end in an amazingly painful and bloody fashion) that Sherlock realized that single most terrifying thing about John Watson: he’d stayed calm the entire time.  It was quite impressive, and probably one of the main reasons their attackers had ultimately decided to leave this encounter at a draw, both parties grudgingly and warily drawing back.

Still marveling at the wonders of his seemingly simple person, Sherlock pushed aside his usual annoyance at stupid question, deciding that John deserved at least the respect of an answer, “You’d be surprised what answers a body can give – more than a living person, I’d imagine.  Live informants tend to lie.”

John was giving him a look that mingled worry and a growing amount of jaded acceptance, and it felt like a win when the shorter man just sighed and shook his head.  Sherlock smiled, glad that Watson was learning to see things his way.  “Tell me again why you didn’t get a job as a coroner?” he asked resignedly as they continued to walk forward.  John was leading, but half-raised and ready, moving along so smoothly and surely that it was impossible to tell that he’d injured his knee.

Trailing behind at about half the full extension of his leash, Sherlock replied easily, “Because coroners are required to investigate both the interesting corpses _and_ the uninteresting ones.  As a consulting detective, I can pick and choose.”

“And then get conscripted to Eigengrau?”

Sherlock made a face.  “Apparently,” he admitted sourly.  He waited patiently as John stopped them at a corner, peeking carefully around the edge before giving the all-clear and moving them forward again.  If nothing else, John was sensible and efficient, and since most people tended to waste their time and energy in utterly illogical ways, Sherlock had to appreciate the qualities John was showing.  Sure, Watson still wasn’t as smart as he, but then again, who was?

“We’re here,” John said, then tested the door they came to.  It didn’t budge, and he frowned.  Sherlock watched as tension subtly sewed itself through his companion’s body, and took that as a sign to be more alert and wary himself.  “And someone’s been here before us,” John added more grimly.

“This door has the same electronic locking mechanism as the majority of this facility,” Sherlock thought aloud, eyes taking everything in with a few quick glances.  He tested the door himself with a little shove, concluding, “Considering the small amount of give, I’d say it’s blocked by something heavy and solid, like a cabinet – as opposed to an inconveniently placed body, which would be more likely to give way.”  While John looked a bit bothered by that assessment, Sherlock simply saw it from its most logical viewpoint, adding, “With that in mind, I doubt that more pushing and shoving will yield results.”

“There’s another door,” John said after a moment, taking Sherlock at his word.  Considering that most people insisted on constantly questioning or challenging Sherlock’s deductions, this quick acceptance was both surprising and heart-warming.  It was with slightly more spring in his step that Sherlock quickly followed after his partner-in-crime once more, a few more hallways taking them to a second, less-used door.  No one bothered them on the way, which was perhaps not so surprising – the morgue was hardly a destination that was in high demand, even when everything was calm in Eigengrau.  This door opened as expected, although by this point, John was radiating the kind of quiet energy that Sherlock had come to associate with slow but dangerous chemical reactions.  With this in mind, Sherlock reached a long arm past John, propping the door open.  When John looked at him with a wary, questioning look on his face, Sherlock calmly indicated the dim entrance with a tip of his chin.  “I’d rather you be able to enter with both hands on your gun, without worrying about the door,” he murmured quietly but simply.  John, perhaps surprised that Sherlock could be so sensible in such mundane ways, blinked once in bewilderment, then nodded and turned back to business.  There was something thrilling, Sherlock was realizing, about watching John Watson when he was focused on a task like this.

Proceeding under Sherlock’s arm, John entered the morgue with all the wariness that an unknown situation deserved.  The emergency lighting wasn’t exactly ideal for observation, but Sherlock’s eyes had long since adjusted, and he looked around keenly as his leash tugged him along in John’s wake.  He’d never been in Eigengrau’s morgue before, but his gaze immediately noted things out of place: open drawers, a discarded sewing needle.  He saw some blood, too, but had the good sense to realize that talking was not in keeping with their present sneakiness, so he instead came closer to tap John on the shoulder.  When he had his companion’s attention, he merely indicated the few, sporadic drops.  They looked like speckles of ink in the present darkness, but there wasn’t much else besides blood that they could be.

“I don’t think anyone else is in here,” John said at that point, voice nonetheless careful and soft, gun still up, “and of all the places for blood, I guess the morgue isn’t the most shocking.”

“Corpses don’t bleed,” Sherlock replied, but didn’t press.  Technically, fresh enough corpses did tend to drip, and while he was curious about the freshness of this blood, he had more pressing matters.  “Where is the body of Captain White?”

John didn’t have the faintest idea, which was disappointing, but Sherlock decided philosophically that this man had already impressed him more than enough.  Taking the lead now, with John following behind and mostly watching the one unblocked door (the other did, indeed, have a filing cabinet pressed up against it), Sherlock began assessing and moving at the same time.  There were multiple cabinets, all closed, but only a few labeled – and therefore likely to have a body in them.  There was also one covered body on the autopsy table, which was a bit odd, because while White’s death was recent, surely it hadn’t been so recent as to warrant his body still being out…

Sherlock had been approaching the sheet-covered corpse even as he’d been thinking, his curiosity overcoming any caution – more and more, he was letting John be the cautious one.  Therefore, he was at the furthest reaches of his leash and right at the side of the autopsy table almost without consciously deciding to investigate.  “John-” he started to say, head cocking as it gathered data that he couldn’t fit into a neat, orderly sort of understanding.  That was about the moment where he realized that the drops of blood also ended at the side of this table, a combination of incongruities that was a bit too much to ignore.

Unfortunately, Sherlock didn’t get to finish either this sentence or his thoughts, because the corpse on the table suddenly exploded into motion, surging up at Sherlock with enough momentum and weight to drag them both to the ground.

“Sherlock!” John’s voice cut through the air as Sherlock hit the floor hard, immediately winded.  By and large, none of the Holmes boys were fighters, so Sherlock wasn’t particularly surprised when he found himself on his back, a heavy weight on his stomach and hands around his neck.  At first he’d been too dazed to react, but soon he’d probably be too to oxygen deprived to mount any kind of defense, which was just plain bothersome.

He had enough of his brain still un-rattled to realize that John wasn’t shooting, though, and that was confusing – surely John was a good enough shot to take out one target at close-range when said target was sitting on his Hound.  “John…!” he croaked, wanting to request that Watson at least attempt to posture and threaten his attacker as he had their foes from earlier.

Instead (after entirely too long for Sherlock’s tastes) John barked out in a tone that was subtly different than what Sherlock had gotten used to, something more formal and professional, “Sir!  Stand down!  We’re allies!”

The person on top of Sherlock froze.  Finally given an opportunity to blink his eyes open and focus properly, even if the pressure hadn’t really let up enough to allow proper breath, Sherlock coughed upwards into hard, deepset eyes, an unforgiving brow, and short hair beyond a receding hairline.  He probably would have recognized the face, some small part of his brain told him, if he weren’t seeing spots at the edge of his vision.

The man above him had turned, looking to Sherlock’s companion.  Fortunately, he seemed to recognize him pretty quickly, “Watson!  What the devil are you doing here?”

Thankfully, John hadn’t forgotten about the oxygen-deprived person in the room.  “Escorting him, actually.”  Sherlock felt a tug at the cuff around his wrist, linking him back to his Handler.  “He’s with me.”

Sherlock’s attacker seemed to be considering the leash.  “So it would seem.” Fortunately, that appeared to be reason enough to end the confrontation, as the hands around Sherlock’s throat abruptly fell away.  Sherlock had been trying to pry them off up until now, and had been making pathetically little headway; now his hands lifted to massage his own throat as he gasped and choked in air.

John (who had taken entirely too long to secure Sherlock’s release, in Sherlock’s opinion) stepped forward to greet the man still sitting on the consulting detective, “It’s good to see you still in one piece, M.”  Usually it was Sherlock who observed things first, but this time, it was John who made a discovery, almost instantly coming closer and saying with caution and concern stiffening his words, “Sir, are you all right?”

It actually seemed like Sherlock’s attacker, the much-vaunted – and much-hunted, as of late – M, was having a hard time getting up.  Sherlock recovered a moment longer, eyes closed and throat still feeling like a crumpled straw, but taking in data with his other senses: M was still crouched over him, but now with a hand on Sherlock’s sternum for support; a pained groan could be heard, following but a frustrating and self-deprecating, “ ‘All in one piece’ might be a bit of wishful thinking.”  Sherlock immediately read into those words, putting them together with what he already knew of the head of Eigengrau’s, and finding the unsurprising picture of a man who didn’t like not having control of a situation, or being weak.  By the time John had helped M dismount his hapless victim, it was clear that M was most definitely weakened in some way.

And Sherlock had had time to catalogue the man’s movements, eyes slitting open to watch the proceedings.  “Injury to left thigh, probably with the inclusion of damaged muscle,” he started rattling off with only a slight, lingering wheeze.  Two sets of eyes snapped to him from where M was trying to stubbornly get up and John was trying to get him to stay down while he looked him over.  Sherlock felt the urge to tell M to give up, because his Handler was an even more stubborn man than he was.  “Judging by his movements, I’d guess outer thigh.  As to internally injuries, I’m sure he has some, but as I’m still recovering from a strangling, I can only guess as to the specifics,” Sherlock finished cuttingly and then sat up.  His head spun but quickly settled; the profound ache in his throat was far less accommodating.

M looked gratifyingly surprised, and Sherlock shot him a mean, smug little smile.  John seemed less startled, and quickly redirected M’s attention before Sherlock’s angry smirk could ignite any sparks.  “Is Sherlock correct?  Where are you injured?”

“Of course I’m right,” Sherlock muttered under his breath even as M began to grudgingly answer John’s questions.  The answers were what Sherlock had expected, albeit with more detail – still, it was uninteresting enough that soon the Hound was pushing to his feet, attention on more important things.

Namely, the fact that he’d just read the title on the nearest morgue drawer: ‘ _Captain Connor White_.’

~^~

Another John was also faced with a fight, but one less likely to be resolved with a few exclamations and revealed identities.

Root’s voice echoed down the halls, sharp and musical but also definitely filled with annoyance by now, “Come on, John, it doesn’t have to be this way!”

“So long as you insist on hunting Harold, it does,” Reese grumbled to himself as he checked how much ammunition he had left.  He’d stashed away a decent amount, and had carried it with him when he’d left his room with Harold, but Root had already forced him to waste quite a few bullets.  He wasn’t out yet, but he’d have to be careful, especially since it would be unwise to forget that Root wasn’t the only dangerous entity he’d possibly have to face in Eigengrau – far from it.  More loudly, he called from around the corner, pseudo-helpful, “You could always give up and walk away.”

He thought he heard a small, angry snarl, then Root was snapping back, “Not a chance.”

“This obsession will get you killed.”

“So will your loyalty, John.”

That was probably true, but Reese zeroed in on Root’s voice anyway, slipping out of cover just long enough to aim and fire, feeling the kick of the shot against his shoulder and then hearing a furious shriek.  He wasn’t sure if he’d actually hit the dangerous woman, but he’d at least given her something to think about.  There was a bit of silence after that, although Reese trusted his instincts, which were telling him not to hope for too much – he very much doubted that Root was dead.

He was proven right a few heartbeats later, when she growled petulantly, “That really wasn’t very nice.”

Affecting a blithe tone, John replied, “Well, the only person who ever says that I’m a nice man is Harold, and we both know how unrealistic he can be.”  Even as he finished off the sentence without a hitch, Reese tensed, hearing another sound.  He swore within the confines of his head, realizing that they were possibly about to get company, unless his ears were playing tricks on him.  Before he could assess the situation, however, Root opened fire on him – he wasn’t hit this time, but he knew instantly that injuring him wasn’t her goal.  Ultimately, Root wasn’t out to kill him: her goal was to get to Harold.  So all Root really wanted to do was get past, around, or through Reese, and right now she was trying to drive him back and distract him so that she could give him the slip.  When Reese had asked her to ‘walk away,’ this wasn’t exactly what he’d been hoping for.

Braving the tail end of the projectile barrage, Reese tried to picture this section of Eigengrau in his head: Q-branch (and therefore Harold, hopefully) was still quite a ways away, so besides Medical, the only geographic features were the usual warren of hallways and storage and abandoned offices.  That meant that there were unfortunately a few ways that Root could outmaneuver him, but if there was anything John Reese did well, it was hunting people.  Each Hounds had their skills, and some were good at spying, some at killing people – some at cooking up their bodies after the fact to make stew.  Reese, though, was one of the Hounds Eigengrau sent out when they wanted someone found and/or run into the ground.

Now, it felt natural to pause a moment, head swiveling back and forth slightly as he got his bearings, and then immediately take off down a hallway to his right.  This wasn’t the way Root had gone, but Reese was aware of that.  Good hunters followed in their prey’s footsteps; exceptional hunters preempted those steps, and cut them off.  The only potential hitch was that Root was also very good at hunting people – it was why she and Reese had often been paired up on missions.  They were both American, sure, but their comparable skill set more than their similar origins was what made them a perfect pair on missions.  It had never been definitively found out which one of them was the better tracker, however, and goodness knows Root had claimed to be Reese’ better on more than one occasion.

Reese couldn’t afford to be deterred, however.  Unintimidated, he picked a steady but swift pace, his every movement rigidly controlled as he reminded himself that failure here meant danger for Harold.  This wasn’t just Reese’s life on the line; this was also the life of someone he cared about.  And the list of people John Reese cared about was a very, very short list.  He couldn’t afford to lose a name like Harold’s.

Before Reese could find Root, however, someone else found him instead: Reese heard footsteps just seconds before a door to right swung open, and only reflexes on his part allowed him to swing his weapon around before the newcomer could get the drop on him.  It wasn’t Root; even in the shadows, the silhouette was bigger, more male.  The newcomer also had reflexes like Reese’s, however, and just as John brought up his weapon, he sensed more than saw another weapon rising to train on him as well.

Shots rang out, but no cries.  Reese flattened himself against the wall to the left of the doorway, the only cover available, and weighed the pros and cons of entering the room to fix the problem.  Usually, he’d have preferred waiting for his opponent to either leave or come to him, but he didn’t have the luxury of time right now.  Root would right now be doing everything possible to get back on Harold’s trail.  Just before Reese could decide that a bit of recklessness was worth it, a voice called out from right inside the door, “Fuck, is that you, Reese?”

“Depends on who’s asking,” Reese replied a bit wearily.  Gunfights were already messy enough without the addition of conversation, but alas, the talking had already started.  He thought he recognized the voice, however: 006, Trevelyan.  The man was best known for his joking manner, but Reese was more than aware of the fact that 006 was a monster in a fight.  Like a shark, he hid a lot of lethality behind a toothy smile.

A moment later and Reese’s suspicions were confirmed: “Trevelyan.”  A pause, then another sentence, which was blithe but also held about as much sincerity as any Hound possessed, “Sorry about almost shooting you.  I’m coming out, all right?”

Reese didn’t make a habit of shooting people unnecessarily, and perhaps Trevelyan knew that, and was monopolizing on the fact.  Regardless, the blond-haired Hound stepped out into view, his weapon holstered and hands up, mouth smiling but eyes keen and wary.  Reese kept his weapon in hand because he had bigger problems than running into old colleagues in the dark.

Before Reese could say anything to that effect, his ‘bigger problem’ started shooting at them.

“Shit,” Trevelyan hissed, but at least he was sensible, and had impressive reflexes to boot: in a heartbeat, he’d leapt back the way he’d come.  Reese followed, having no other cover, and actually feeling the heat of a bullet tear through his sleeve near his arm.  He’d been ignoring the graze he already sported along his left side, but wasn’t keen to add on any additional, more threatening injuries.

“I thought it sounded like a bit of a shootout, but I’d been hoping to run around the problem, not into it,” Trevelyan quipped, his weapon back out but no longer trained on Reese.  For better or for worse, they were both on the same side now, not enemies.  Eyes focused on the doorway, where he saw another bullet tear through the wall across the hall, Trevelyan jerked his head behind him to the other side of the room, “There’s another door that way, if you want to clear out.”

Thinking of Harold, and how that doorway would take him further away from the woman threatening Harold, Reese sighed and joined Trevelyan at the door instead.  “I’ve actually got business in the opposite direction,” he said obliquely.

“What a coincidence, so do I,” the other agent replied with a grim smile that said quite eloquently that they were both fucked.  The irony wasn’t lost on Reese: here they were, two men who probably had more survival instincts between them than half the population of London combined, and they were ignoring an easy escape route in favor of facing a rain of bullets.  “Who’s your playmate?” Alex went on to question.

“009.”

“One of the Director-general’s cronies.  Fantastic,” Trevelyan said without any indication of actual humor.  Reese said nothing, quietly trying to pinpoint Root’s location by her gunshots.  She was still shooting sporadically, although Reese knew better than to hope that she’d run out of bullets – because Root liked to come prepared as much as he did, even if she was a lot more frivolous with her ammo, apparently…  “Why is she hunting you?” Trevelyan spared Reese a glance.  “Aren’t we all on the same side?”

Reese immediately felt the tendons between his shoulder-blades tense, instinctively knowing that Harold was not someone he wanted to bring into this conversation.  True, Trevelyan appeared to be on his side now (and was definitely appreciated in this skirmish with Root), but the fact remained that Trevelyan was a Hound, and therefore a potential danger to Harold.  So no, they really weren't on the same side.  The collars Reese and Trevelyan wore no longer served to control them, and it was very likely that 006 was taking the opportunity to wreak some vengeance upon the low-pass rulers of Eigengrau – meaning Harold would be a target.  It was only because of personal feelings that Reese didn’t feel the same.  That meant Reese, for Harold’s sake, couldn’t afford to trust Trevelyan.  Therefore, instead of bringing up this potential vulnerability, Reese replied simply, “It’s a long story.”

“Huh.  Pity we don’t really have time to talk about it.”  Surprisingly, 006 actually did sound a bit regretful, but then again, Trevelyan had always been a rather good conversationalist.  Now he edged closer to the doorway, daring to peak out, only to be immediately chased back in by another bullet.  “Any chance you two could just kiss and make up?  I’m actually in a bit of a hurry, and this was not something I planned to get tangled up in – no offense.”

“None taken,” Reese said easily, “I hadn’t wanted to get tangled up in this either.”

Alec’s teeth flashed in a quick, grim smile.  “Glad we’re on the same page.”

Root’s voice rang out from down the hallway and to the right, crystal clear and honestly too close for comfort – although at least it meant she hadn’t ditched her present quarry in favor of Harold yet, “Come on out and face me like a man, Reese!”  Her musical catcall faded to something a bit more impatient and razor-edged, “By which I mean come out and die like a good boy.”

“She’s charming,” 006 observed with heavy sarcasm.

“You might want to tell your new friend to leave before he gets hurt,” Root added.

Trevelyan’s crooked smirk turned to a frown.  “She’s also very sure of herself.”

“She’s earned it,” Reese admitted without rancor, and was faintly pleased when Trevelyan didn’t argue.  Reese and Trevelyan hadn’t been assigned together very often, perhaps because they had fairly different modes of operation: John was by and large a quiet, thoughtful man, who was very capable of thinking on his feet, but preferred scouting things out and planning first.  Trevelyan, on the other hand, was a loud and reputably reckless man, whose plans were something of the exception rather than the rule.  Now, though, Reese saw something analytical glinting in Trevelyan’s narrowed eyes, and he reassessed his opinions of the blond-haired Hound just a bit.

“Since we’ve both agreed that we can’t take the easy way out-”  006 jerked his chin briefly to the door behind them, which offered an escape that apparently neither of them wanted.  “-Then I suppose the only option is through _her_.  Ideas?”

Reese was still thinking.  “She’s got us pinned down pretty well,” he hedged instead of answering, even as he edged closer to the door.  As soon as he made to peer out into the hall, a well-placed bullet drove him back.  Root had a crazy-streak in her a mile wide, but she was also a good shot.

“What are the chances she gives up and just goes away?”

‘ _Very high_ ,’ Reese thought, even as he felt something cold seep through his veins at the thought.  If Root went away, that meant she started hunted more vulnerable prey: Harold.  Suddenly realizing that an ally was possibly just what he needed at this moment to contain the situation, Reese limbered up his tongue and said smoothly, “Once she’s fixated, she’s about as hard to get rid of as a malignant cancer.”  It was pretty close to the truth; Reese simply didn’t elaborate on _who_ precisely Root was fixated on.

For a moment that stretched uneasily, like a cold rubber-band, 006 didn’t answer.  Reese purposefully didn’t meet the eyes he could feel on him.  After a moment, though, it seemed like Trevelyan swallowed the half-lie.  There was a nod, then a grunted, “Well, that’s bloody fantastic.”  Another pause, as Reese watched the doorway and tried to listen for footsteps – because Root was usually a fairly cautious creature, but right now she was just about wild enough to sneak up and leap right through the door at them, gun leading.  He also knew from experience that she was as lightfooted as a cat, and just as quick.  

Unexpectedly, Trevelyan went on, “We could try and flank her?”

Reese hadn’t expected the notoriously compulsive 006 to be the one to come up with a plan.  His opinion of the man rose a little.  “It’ll be a little bit hard with both of us in the same room and her taking pot-shots in the hallway," he still had to point out pessimistically. 

“So one of us lays down covering fire as the other runs out,” Alec shrugged, showing that he held his life significantly less dearly than most people did.  Then again, Hounds had rather atypical survival instincts, and even Reese had to admit that the plan had merit – if only because it seemed like the only option.  “Is there another room across the hall, something to duck into?”

“There is,” he said slowly, “if you want to get shot.”

“If our other option is to wait here until your trigger-happy friend pops by, then I’m willing to chance it,” Trevelyan snarked back, and when Reese looked over with a slightly raised eyebrow, he was gifted by a peevish but determined glower.  006 went on, humor finally used up, “Root likes getting shot just as much as the rest of us, so if you can get a few shots off, she’ll at least hesitate.  That’s all the gap I’ll need.”

Reese was slowly developing a new respect for his unplanned ally.  He gave his weapon a quick check, the tool moving easily in his hands.  “Fine.  If you’re the one risking your neck,” Reese agreed laconically, and quickly raised the weapon to his shoulder again with intent this time.  Another, better man might have felt a bit bad for misleading 006, and letting him think they had to act before Root inevitably closed in on them – but Reese had realized long ago that he never regretted lies that served a purpose.  Right now, that purpose was protecting Harold, and it was causing Trevelyan to come up with plans that were stupid, and daring… and just might work.

~^~

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you who commented, suggesting/asking about what is next! If ever you don't see your favorite characters for a long time, realize that I'm not actually completely competent with every character out there - so I sometimes take the coward's way out, and avoid writing character's I'm not comfortable with :P For example: Shaw. I don't write her very easily, so her entrances into this story will continue to be brief. That being said, most of the pairings already seen are ones that shall reappear! In fact, I think it's high time that Reese got back to his Harold, no?


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reese and Trevelyan are still pinned down by Root - but 006 has a plan. It might not be the kind of plan that everyone walks away alive from, but it's a plan.
> 
> And they aren't the only ones in trouble, as things heat up for Bond, Lecter, Q, H, and Will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up in this chapter - so be prepared for a bit of violence! Also, a cameo appearance from yet another fandom ;)

“Now!” Trevelyan said, in such a calm tone and with so little warning that for a second Reese merely frowned at him – and then suddenly 006 was leaping into the hallway with a roar.  Fortunately, 006 was capable of laying down his own cover fire for the split-second it took Reese’s body to react, and then it was total chaos.  Reese thought he saw a flash of movement further down the hall that might have been Root, but at the moment, he wasn’t trying to aim like a sniper.  Keeping as much of his body still out of sight in the doorway, he shot blind, more of his attention on Trevelyan than on their attacker.

For a man of his size, 006 could really move.  There also wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in him, and Reese had a moment where he wondered if Trevelyan’s brash rush from cover had been born of a trust in Reese’s capabilities – or if Alec Trevelyan was simply insane.  Reese had dealt with people on both sides of the spectrum, and decided he wasn’t one to judge.  He stopped shooting and gave a small shrug to himself, the second his impromptu ally was out of sight in another room across the hall.  He was closer to Root this way, although Reese was already worrying about just how long it would be before Root simply turned tail and escaped to hunt Harold by another route.

Or, at least, that was what Reese was worried about for all of three minutes – in which time Root catcalled him twice more, but there was otherwise no noise to indicate that anything had changed.

And then he started smelling smoke.

It was coming from further down the hallway – on the other side of Root from Reese, in fact, and the smoke began to block the emergency lights at about the same time that flickering flames began to provide their own orange glow.  Root snarled out a curse and Reese thought he heard laughter, a deep chuckle that sounded positively hellish in the increasingly fiery environment.  Trevelyan must have ducked into a room that had multiple exits, and had used that to his advantage not only to get behind Root… but to somehow start a fire along the way.

“John…!” Root called, stretching out his name in that warning tone she often got – when she wanted to threaten him, but right now it sounded like she was deeply unsettled.

To be honest, so was Reese.  He was honestly at a loss as to how 006 could have started a fire that fast.  It clearly wasn’t a small fire either, because now he could hear it, a throaty sort of crackling that matched the increasing, flickering light.  Deciding to take advantage of the chaos that had taken all of them (minus Trevelyan) by surprise, Reese quickly cleared his throat and called back, “Now might be a good time to surrender, Root!”

“Not a chance,” was the snippy reply.  But it was followed by choking.

006’s own voice joined the conversation like some sort of demon from its native turf, “If you think I’m bluffing and won’t gladly burn this whole place to the ground, then you haven’t been in Eigengrau long enough to understand how much I hate this place.”

There was silence for a moment, then another cough from Root, even as Reese’s eyes began to water.  He had no idea how Trevelyan was coping, because he had to be even closer to the flames.  When Root started snarling very sincere expletives at 006, however, the pyromaniac gave as good as he got, his voice a bit harsher than usual but still loud and strong.

It was swiftly becoming clear that Root was growing desperate – this wasn’t a stalemate that any of them could hold forever, but with her only exits blocked by fire and/or enemy Hounds, Root was in a particularly bad position now.  The smoke had also grown thick enough that everyone was on an equally bad playing field, so far as shooting one another went.  “John!” she called out again, making it clear that she was done verbally abusing Trevelyan and interested in talking to a less volatile person now, “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“Oh, I think I do,” he rasped back.  Pulling his shirt-collar up over his mouth and nose, he coughed into it, silently hating 006 a bit for turning this into a literal fire-fight.  Still, he could play tough like everyone else.

Since Root’s reply happened at the same time as more coughing, 006 wasn’t completely immune to the smoke either, “Do you really think that Harold can save you – from this?  From yourself?  You know what we are, John Reese.”

‘ _Harold knows what I am, too,_ ’ he said silently, but didn’t open his mouth.

Root went on, “If you kill me, you’re slamming the door on freedom.  Have you really been in this cage for so long that you’d rather roll over like a good dog for the people who put these collar-?”  Suddenly her voice cut off and there was the sound of frantic struggling, the kind of nearly silent thrashing and scrambling that came with only the most desperate, intense fights.  Reese stayed where he was, his gun still firmly in his grip but his mind carefully blank, so that he would not piece together images to go with what he was hearing.

Then there was silence.

The footsteps that came down the hallway were heavy, already telling Reese’s keen ears that it was 006 approaching, and making no move to hide it.  Reese stepped into view with his weapon lowered, in time to see broad shoulders silhouette against a background of flames.  Smoke fell away from Trevelyan like silken shrouds falling loose, and there was definitely something of a death-shroud about him – something inhumanely lethal.  His weapon was holstered as if he didn’t even need it, and his eyes were shadowed and unreadable.

“You said you had business to attend to around here?” Alec asked, voice a low rasp.  He’d torn a piece of cloth off to wrap around his mouth and nose, explaining how he’d weathered at least some of the smoky conditions.  His tone was unsettlingly flat when compared to his earlier, boisterous discussion, and Reese recognized the Hound that he’d killed alongside in days past.

Meeting those eyes, John didn’t blink, but said simply, “Not anymore.  You?”  He asked with apparent disinterest, “So what brought you to the area?”

“I was hoping to steal some supplies from Medical, actually,” Trevelyan said with a faint tick of his mouth that might have been a smile, in another circumstance.  Another lifetime.  What Reese noticed, however, was that the only injury 006 had was on his right biceps.  It didn’t look like a serious wound by any means, and hadn’t slowed up the Hound in the slightest thus far.  Notable, however, was the fact that the injury was bound by a tie with the knot facing backwards – an angle that Trevelyan wouldn’t have been able to manage by himself.  The tie itself had also been familiar, before everything had been obscured in firelight and smoky shadow.  “I hope you don’t take it personally when I say I hope we don’t meet up again.”

Reese moved his mouth to shape a smile, something that society had taught him to do even when he didn’t feel it.  “I’d be insulted – if the feeling wasn’t mutual,” he replied fairly.

Now Alec chuffed a very faint laugh.  If either of them were reflecting on Root’s words and feeling the weight of the collars about their necks, neither mentioned it.

In fact, they said nothing more.  They simply turned and parted ways as the fire grabbed for whatever fuel it could find, doomed to eat itself to death.

~^~

In retrospect, it would be ironic: Q was heading to Q-branch because he wanted to take back control of the computers from Root’s virus – while H wanted to keep the electronic key to the collars out of enemy hands.  The joke was that said key was no longer in Q-branch, but instead on Q’s person, waltzing right back to Q-branch.  Unfortunately, neither of them got time to compare notes.

The sounds of the fighting behind them had grown more intense by the second – an inevitable result when you added two more Hounds like Bond and Lecter to the mix – and perhaps that cacophony was part of the reason they heard no sounds of anyone else approaching.  Shaw also moved like a knife through smoke, so maybe they’d never stood a chance of hearing her until it was too late.

Will twisted and cried out, his own noise and the crack of a much closer gunshot seemingly simultaneous.  He went down hard, a heavy puppet with no more strings left.  A beat later and Shaw was stepping into view from an adjacent hallway, the labyrinthine turns of Eigengrau once again favoring the hunters.  Her gun was up and swiveled quickly to the two remaining men, and H scrambled to push Q behind him – because, yes, Shaw was angry at H more than anyone, but she was much more likely to dismissively shoot people she didn’t feel anything for at all.  Will was a perfect example.  Even now, the way Shaw looked at Q was the way most people would look at an inanimate object, and her interest quickly slipped back to H when she realized she couldn’t simply remove that object.  “You know, I don’t think it’s very fair when you bring in other people to fight your battles for you,” she observed.

“I believe it was you, Miss Shaw, who once told me that winning by cheating was better than losing by the rules,” H somehow managed to get out, even as he felt inevitability like a noose around his neck.  The metaphorical noose tightened as Shaw’s dark eyes unexpectedly flicked past him again, and this time when she looked at Q, it was clear when she suddenly deigned to give him her attention.  Harold’s heart sank when Shaw’s eyes widened with recognition.

She regained control of her expression quickly, resettling her weight like she was lining up her entire body behind her raised gun.  “You’re the Quartermaster, aren’t you?” she asked more jovially.

This was very much not good.  Just as Shaw’s attention shifted to Q, however, and before anyone could think of a safe way to respond to her, there was a shift of movement from the forgotten body on the floor – Will, apparently not dead.  H had just enough time to snap his eyes to Hannibal’s mysterious companion, seeing him twitch sluggishly, before suddenly that sluggishness became an almost freakish speed.  The kick caught Shaw so much by surprise that it actually took her legs out from under her.  H was so surprised that he could only stare, unable to recall ever seeing anyone but Reese getting the drop on Shaw.

Will, meanwhile, had rolled up onto his knees.  The whole side of his face was bloody, looking slick and tarry as it caught the emergency lighting and clung to his hair.  It made his eyes seem unnaturally white against it, but there was something empty in his gaze, something wrong that H’s hindbrain could identify but that none of his mind could name.  “Pride goeth before the fall,” Will rasped in a voice that sounded unlike anything H had heard from him thus far.  Glancing back to Q reflexively for cues, he saw that the Quartermaster looked equally confused and unsettled.

This wasn’t normal.

Shaw was quick to recover, and she’d never dropped her gun – but Will had a gun, too, and somehow it was back in his hands.  As Will snarled something more about the ugliness of pride, the two of them both twisted to aim at one another, and it was Shaw who balked first.  Will, his lips peeled back in an animal snarl, didn’t seem to even notice the other gun, his fearlessness making him tenfold more terrifying.  H was actually glad when he saw Shaw switch from offense to defense, flipping over and rolling clear just a beat before Will pulled the trigger.  It was a haphazard shot, but Will didn’t seem to mind.  His eyes had followed Shaw even if his gun hadn’t, and as he got one foot underneath him, he suddenly roared, “ _You will be purified_!” and bodily leapt at the woman.

“Holy shit, Hannibal, what kind of person did you team up with?” H just barely heard Q gasp as Shaw and Will devolved into a chaotic, desperate brawl.

~^~

As a rule, Hannibal was picky about who he voluntarily spent his time with.  Social events were often necessary evils, and thus exceptions to this rule, but as much as possible Hannibal liked to associate only with those worth his time.  Life was too short to be wasted on rude people.  That was why Hannibal had killed his last handler, and why he’d likewise put even a few fellow Hounds in their graves – he had no choice but to work for Eigengrau, but he could at least influence who kept him company.  Some, like Hart, he tolerated well enough, because while the man could be insufferably proud, he _was_ polite; some, like Bond, he appreciated under specific circumstance, such as now, as they fought together like efficient, twinned machines.

Some, like 016 and 018, he dearly wished he’d eliminated earlier.

The pure power of 016’s punch knocked Hannibal off his feet despite his efforts to dodge.

“God damn, Frankie, I love to watch you work,” 018 hollered from further down the hall, his American accent almost as irritating as his wild joviality.  Both Sixteen and Eighteen were American imports, and Hannibal had asked himself on multiple occasions why Eigengrau had bothered with them.  Hounds were more than just mindless individuals who happened to have high Psychopasses – they were intelligent, useful.  Hannibal had never been impressed by the mental acuity of either of these men.

Now, though, he was beginning to understand why Eigengrau kept them.  016 fought like a tank, and 018 just goaded him on.

“Shut your hole, Russo,” 016 growled back in his canyon-low, avalanche-rough voice, even as he stalked over to where Hannibal was recovering.  Lecter could taste his own blood in his mouth, and he fancied that he had at least a few bruised ribs and loosened teeth thanks to Sixteen’s powerful fists.  Sixteen was probably the biggest high-Pass agent in Eigengrau, and just for a second, Hannibal saw his own mortality in the man’s flat, narrowed eyes as their gazes met.

Eighteen, a smaller man but still very dangerous, was wearing a grin that never warmed up his eerily dark eyes.  He was just opening his mouth to respond to 016 when Bond barreled into him from behind.  Perhaps it would have been a fair fight, but Sixteen and Eighteen had come with some of C’s men, and Hannibal knew that even Bond was having to work to hold his own.  Now, bloodied and bruised round the edges, 007 and Eighteen tangled, and Hannibal accepted what he’d already known: that he had to deal with his monsters on his own.

The thought made him smile.

He’d been doing that since he was a child.

Rumor was that Sixteen and Eighteen had tried to kill each other more than once, and had to be regularly split up when they got into fights – despite that, however, Hannibal was unsurprised when Sixteen’s scarred face turned the second Eighteen and Bond crashed together.  Hannibal had made a living out of reading people, and therefore he was ready to act when Sixteen’s attention was dragged away for just a heartbeat.  Lecter had been on his hands and knees on the floor, head ringing, but he leaped up with all the speed of a snow leopard, using his position to his advantage to ram his shoulder up into Sixteen’s middle.  To 016’s credit, he made no noise of surprise, even as Hannibal’s momentum sent them both surging into the wall.  Hannibal disengaged before Sixteen could recover and grab him, knowing instinctively that he wouldn’t survive a brawl with Sixteen quite as well as Bond was surviving a brawl with Sixteen’s smaller, black-haired counterpart.  Hannibal was a big man with an athletic build, but Sixteen was a bull – he’d actually taken a bullet already, and while his arm was now streaked with blood, it hadn’t seemed to even slow him.

As Hannibal backed up, adrenaline a storm in the bottle of his body, he heard a gunshot from behind him.  The resulting, undignified shriek was from one of their opponents, however, and Eighteen’s snarled curse a few moments later said that 007 was proving to be a handful.  Hannibal entertained a small smile even as he kept his focus on the man in front of him.  It was probably for the best that the two of them had quickly ended up weaponless, because Hannibal recalled seeing Sixteen’s skills with a gun – he was no sniper like Shaw or Percival, but he could end a man quite quickly regardless.  While the lack of finesse made Hannibal want to curl his lip, he had grudging respect for the pure efficiency his opponent practiced.

Falling back on a trick that Hannibal had used before, when he’d been on missions with 007, Hannibal switched fluidly over to Russian and called over a quick phrase.  Sixteen’s eyebrows twitched downwards and he froze in place warily.  When 007 made no response, however, Sixteen began wading forward again, canny, deep-set eyes turning impossibly colder.

Hannibal braced himself, feeling his injuries and acquainting himself with the reality of things: Sixteen could kill him right now.  Hannibal was a predator, but he was not invulnerable, and some prey-animals were very dangerous indeed.

~^~

At first, Bond was so startled to hear Russian that he thought there was something wrong with his ears.  It was a trick that he and Alec used quite frequently, but he’d only made use of the shared language occasionally with Hannibal, and almost exclusively on missions.  This might not have been a mission, but the danger level was much the same, so after a split-second’s lag, James’ mind latched onto the words.  He was still trying to handle two attackers at the moment (there would have been a third, but he'd just shot one fellow in the stomach, leaving James faced by just Russo and another violent stranger) and had already missed the start of Hannibal’s sentence, but he still got the gist of it.

‘ _Hurting your enemy will hurt mine_.’

James didn’t hesitate, and perhaps later he’d look back and ask himself why that was.  Hannibal’s words were gently said, but 007 treated them like an order, easily translating what the other man wanted.  Suddenly the only person that mattered was Eighteen, and Russo actually looked startled when 007 suddenly went for him with redoubled fervor.  Giving up the gun in favor of dropping it and freeing up his hands, James startled the black-haired young man enough to create an opening – but instead of going for a knockout punch to the jaw, or a suffocating blow to the throat, he threw all of his strength into a relatively harmless punch to Eighteen’s shoulder.

Harmless, but far from painless.

James began to feel every point of his high Psychopass, listening dispassionately as Russo cried out in alarmed pain.  As Eighteen twisted away, James aimed for the kidneys next, his mind narrowing to a more singular purpose: to cause pain.  The part of James that had sat next to Q in the locker rooms and who had eased Q out of a panic attack when he’d first rescued him from C’s cronies faded away into the background, replaced instead by a man who had no compunction about doing what he had to in order to survive.  If Hounds knew any one thing, it was this: sometimes survival was messy.  Someone ran up behind him and tried to grab him in a bear-hug, but it wasn’t a Hound, and James didn’t feel afraid.  In fact, it was hardly more than a knee-jerk reaction to jam his head back, hearing the crunch of cartilage being smashed.  He stomped back on his attacker’s instep next, simultaneously ramming an elbow back, and just like that, he was free and wading back into the fight with Eighteen again.  Russo looked shocked – and hunted, like he hadn’t truly realized what kind of predator he’d tangled with until now.  His unsettlingly dark eyes were widened, and he backed up instead of attacking again, his previous bravado fading as his survival instincts began screaming at him.  James took no notice, simply stalking forward, scooping up his dropped gun as he came.

That finally got Eighteen’s attention again.  With James now armed, the scales were dangerously weighted in the blond-haired Hound’s favor, and Russo’s lips immediately pulled back from his teeth.  He looked like something wild, and he charged immediately.  Guns were long-range weapons, so it made sense to get in close, to reduce the weapon’s efficiency.  James didn’t need it to be efficient, though – after all, he didn’t want to _kill_ Eighteen right now.

He wanted to make him _scream_.

The sounds of Hannibal and Sixteen’s fighting had started up again, deceptively quiet grunts and snarls as both men went at each other with brutal stoicism.  Shouting wasted breath.  As James sent a bullet into Russo’s right shin, however, the air was dominated by a shriek.

James didn’t look to see if his tactics had served the purpose Hannibal needed them to – truth be told, he had his hands a bit full.  Even injured, Russo was shockingly dangerous.  If anything, the pain seemed to unhinge him, unshackling something demonic in him that turned the scream into something hellish and hateful.  He couldn’t put weight on one leg, but Eighteen was already close enough to use his momentum to bowl into James’s middle.  They both went down in a heap.  Russo cried out again, sharp and animal, as the impact jarred his injuries, but then he roared out a vicious curse and tried to pound Bond’s head in.  Sixteen yelled something from across the room that sounded _very_ threatening, but James didn’t have time for him.  Sixteen was Hannibal’s problem.

As the sounds of fighting grew more heated, James managed to throw Eighteen off him for long enough to firm up his grip on his gun, raise it, and shoot the same bastard whose nose he’d broken just minutes ago.  By this point, James was just about out of ammo, but it was worth it to finally level the playing field.

Bond’s grin was small, vicious, and came from a cold place in his soul that he rather hoped Q would never have to see.

~^~

In terms of pure strength and enduring power, Sixteen had the advantage.  However, as soon as Eighteen cried out in agony, Hannibal gained an advantage of his own: focus.  Hannibal had never been overburdened with sympathy for others.  In fact, it was safe to say that the only person alive that he presently held any iota of affection for was heading towards Q-branch now, away from the present fight.  Sixteen, though, despite his frequent fights with his dark-haired companion, apparently had some inconvenient feelings that were now serving to distract him.  Back in the days when Hannibal had been a surgeon, he’d learned all the weak points in a human body, where everything attached and where it came apart – when he’d transitioned into life as a psychiatrist, he’d simply reapplied that knowledge to human minds.  Sixteen was an absolute monster of a man, but Hannibal had seen the weak point in his psyche, and had dug into it like a thumb into an eye-socket.

It was clear now that Sixteen was distracted, his heart having gone out of the fight.  He was still absolutely lethal, yes, but now only a portion of that dangerousness was turned towards eliminated Hannibal – more of Sixteen’s focus kept shifting over to where 007 was trying to killed Russo.  From a purely analytical standpoint, Hannibal wasn’t entirely sure that James had the upper hand, but he was still doing his job: posing a threat to Eighteen that Sixteen couldn’t ignore.

Rolling around on the floor now, fighting over the gun, it was anyone’s guess whether 007 or 018 would win.  However, while Hannibal would only feel a small, mild regret at 007’s passing (a useful ally was always an unfortunate loss), it was becoming increasingly clear that Sixteen would be torn apart inside if the next bullet tore through Russo’s pretty skull.

Bond kicked out and connected with Russo’s ruined lower leg.  Eighteen’s black-haired head arched back in a scream.

“Billy!” Eighteen bellowed in return, and his attention slipped entirely away from Hannibal for the first time.

Just as Hannibal prepared to take advantage of that opening, however, he heard something else.  A gunshot from the other direction - in Will Graham's direction.  Already panting from holding his own against that oxen of a Hound, Hannibal spun around, and it was only due to equal distraction on Eighteen’s part that Hannibal didn’t immediately pay for his diverted focus.  Will, the Quartermaster, and the other Q-branch employee were out of sight down the hall, however, stymying Hannibal’s sudden desire to know what was going on.  He thought he heard something else – voices – and turned more completely in that direction as if a magnetic force were pulling him.  Only as an afterthought did he realize that there was still a fight going on in his immediate vicinity, glancing back and relaxing a little as he saw that Russo was down and barely moving, and now it was just James versus Sixteen.  Watching for just a moment, mouth curling upwards in a slow, appreciative smile as he watched 007 work, Hannibal felt some of his usual, detached calm return.  There were still pains in his body, but they were swiftly being compartmentalized.

Right until he heard the words “ _You will be purified_!” being bellowed from down the hall.  It sounded very much like Will, but at the same time, nothing like him, and something in Hannibal’s chest gave a leap – he couldn’t identify the feeling.  Worry? Fear?  Excitement?   _Elation_?  Because even as he heard Will’s voice, he knew what he was really hearing: someone else, someone dangerous, rising up behind Will’s soft, shy eyes.  The wolf behind the sheep’s clothing.

James had heard it, too, but was drawing different conclusions, not knowing enough to understand the true scope of the situation – not knowing enough to realize that he’d just heard a god being born again, beautiful and bloody.  “Hannibal!  I’ve got things handled here!” James grunted, even as Sixteen did his level best to prove that statement wrong.  “Go – see what the others ran into!” 

Hannibal didn’t envy 007 his present position.  Actually, he wasn’t even entirely sure that 007 would survive this.  But that wasn’t particularly important.  Briefly, Hannibal contemplated asking whether James really wanted to put his precious Q into Hannibal’s hands – but, then again, seeing as he hadn’t killed Q before, it would be capricious of him to go and do it now.  Without any words to indicate the thoughts behind his cool, steady eyes, Hannibal turned on his heel, only wincing and holding a hand to his bruised ribs once he went from walking to running down the hallway.

‘ _Are you worried that you won’t get there in time to save Will_?’ someone might have asked him.

And Hannibal would only have smiled, and answered, ‘ _Why do you think I want to save him_?’

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were a number of people wanting to see what would happen if Will went a bit... out of his head... while in friendly company ;) Q and H are about to find out. 
> 
> Kudos to anyone who recognized the new additions! (And while it's possible/likely that both Eighteen and Sixteen would, in their canon universe, know Russian, I'm tweaking it here so that they don't, for the sake of the story.)


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Will out of his mind (more so than Q knows) and Shaw just barely handling him, Q is in a bit of a fix and has to make some fast decisions.
> 
> Little does he know, it doesn't matter what he does.
> 
> Things are about to get worse regardless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the daunting chapter summary, there's a bit of humor in this chapter, too ;) Because I felt I should check back in on Roxy, Merlin, and Harry... and for some reason I can't stop making their lives into a bit of a sitcom in the midst of this mess. Enjoy! *scurries back to grading essays* 
> 
> A few new faces turn up, so if you're ever lost amidst the titles and faces, I've got my casting pics [here.](https://only1truthfanfiction.wordpress.com/casting-pics/casting-pics-for-sciamachy/)

Ever since C had taken over Eigengrau, Q’s life had been something of a conscious nightmare, but somehow that all paled in comparison to what he was seeing now.  There was something monstrous going on in front of him, something wrong, and no matter how much he told himself that Will getting up and fighting was a _good_ thing.  Q had never been much for zombie movies, but watching someone he’d thought dead spring into sudden and rabid movement – still bleeding, the red smearing everywhere from his head wound – was like being in a zombie movie.

And everyone knew that zombies didn’t distinguish between enemies and allies.

“Oh my god,” H said quietly, but neither of them said or did anything else, simply watching, fixated.  Will had lost his gun, and it was clear that Shaw was trying to go for it, but Will was like a wolverine in her arms – a hungry one.  Will was still bellowing religious phrases, and Q tried to figure out how he’d missed the fact that Will Graham was a religious zealot.  All he kept concluding, however, was that there had been absolutely no warning, and that he couldn’t even recognize the man in front of him. 

He also kept concluding that he felt very, very sorry for Agent Shaw.  By this point, Will was quoting phrases from Genesis, quickly making his way to the inevitable story about Eve and a certain snake, and it was hard to tell if Shaw was snarling out of effort, fury, or actual fear.  She was still the better fighter, Q thought – at the very least, her file indicated that her combat training was extensive – but Will was an absolute madhouse of movement.  Determination and fervor could win out over knowledge and skill, Q knew. 

When Shaw got in a smashing hit to the side of Will’s face and Will in return recovered to grab her throat, spitting in her face, Q decided he had to do something. 

“Q-!” H yelped – once again dropping the honorific “Mr.”, a definite sign that things had gone tits up – when the boffin darted closer.  Thankfully, H’s bad leg kept him from pursuing, and Q evaded the hand that grabbed for him.  His heart was hammering so heard that he could feel it throbbing in each of his wounds like an echo, and a tiny voice in the back of his head was screaming at him to just back off and leave well enough alone.  In all honesty, Q wasn’t even sure what he’d do once he had the gun in his hands – but, if nothing else, he figured that it would be better off in his own grip than in the possession of Shaw or Will.  True, Shaw had threatened them, but Will did not seem like a person who needed a gun right now.

Blocking out H’s continued please at him to come back and “let them sort it out themselves!” Q kept edging forward. 

“Holy shit, what is wrong with you?” Shaw hissed, and Q wasn’t sure whether she was talking about him or about Will.  Deciding to at least mitigate his own rising stupidity, Q backed off just enough and just long enough to unslung his satchel from his shoulders – surreptitiously tucking into it the little metal key for the Hounds’ collars.  Having a sense that things were about to get crazier, Q slid the whole thing back across the floor to H.

“Go!” Q snapped at him, above the rising fervor of Shaw and Will’s scuffle.  “You said you needed to get to Q-branch - I’ll meet you there!  Just don’t let anything happen to _that_.”  Q cut his eyes meaningfully to the bag, and at first considered telling H what he’d snuck in there just now, but apparently 007’s secretive habits were rubbing off on him.  Q held his tongue, deciding that all that mattered was that the collar-key was safe.  Seeing as H, thus far, had the strongest survival instincts of all of them, it seemed a safe bet.  “Take the hallway to your left and _keep going_.”

H looked very much like a deer in the headlights, but at least he wasn’t visibly hyperventilating.  In fact, after a moment of just staring fixedly between Q and the satchel that had been pushed his way, H’s mouth set in a firm, hard line and he braced a hand on his bad leg, bending.  It was clearly uncomfortable, but the older techie managed to scoop up the bag, setting it over his own shoulder with care.  His expression was grim but determined as he straightened again, met Q’s eyes – spared a more panicked glance for the fight beyond – and then nodded. 

“Good luck, Mr. Q,” he said only but sincerely.  Then he turned and limped away. 

Leaving Q to fight and sort out the mess that was Will Graham and Sameen Shaw. 

“Bugger all,” he muttered under his breath, suddenly tempted to turn around and leave them there, and just follow H.  Because whatever further chaos H might walk into on his travels, it had to be less disastrous than this

~^~

Eggsy hadn’t gotten a text from Harry in awhile, and it was making him nervous – and the fact that it was making him nervous was making him annoyed, because Eggsy wasn’t used to giving a flying fuck about what other people were doing.  He was independent, dammit, and his list of important people was short. 

But apparently longer now by one person, despite how short of a time he’d known Harry Hart. 

“Come on, you fucker,” Eggsy growled at the absent Hound, even as he sent another text, keeping his hands hidden on the off-chance that any of C’s men would get curious about what he was messaging.  ~ _Moran took some of the men and left the hanger.  Not sure where they went_ ~  It was actually possible that they’d left to try and sort out The Mystery of the Missing phone.  Good luck to that, since said phone was hopefully still with Harry somewhere deep within Eigengrau.  Theoretically, that meant that this was the best moment thus far to take over the hanger, but Harry wasn’t bloody texting back, Eggsy didn’t like his chances alone. 

Namely because there were two Hounds still in the room.  Besides Harkness, there was another, younger high-Pass agent in the room – a smaller, slimmer fellow who nonetheless had such a look of murder about him that Eggsy wasn’t about to discount him for his size.  All in all: bad odds.  Three cronies, two Hounds, Ianto Jones (who might be an ally, but who was also pretty cozy with Harkness), and Eggsy with nothing but his knife and AWOL back-up. 

The phone vibrated in his hand.  Eggsy immediately flipped it over, peering at it in the lee of his body.  It took physical effort to hide the resulting smile that wanted to crawl all over his face as he read ~ _Headed your way_ ~  It was such a simple text from a man who’s first actions towards Eggsy had been to attack him, yet Eggsy found his mood soaring without hesitation. 

Feeling a bit fiercer now, a bit less destructible, Eggsy simply sent back a smiley-face and slipped the phone into his pocket.  He looked back over the room with more hopeful eyes, strategizing again – but this time, with a Hound of his own factored in.

~^~

“Well, that wasn’t too difficult,” Merlin opined, as their little trio entered Q-branch.  He made a show of brushing imaginary dirt off his hands.  All around them, Q-branch looked like a subterranean cave, with darkened cubicles instead of stalagmites growing in it.

Roxy shot him a withering look, her weapon still occupying both of her hands.  “We had to kill people just to get in here.  C’s men are multiplying like rats in here.”

“Only three people,” Harry chimed in, referencing their brief fight at the entrance to Q-branch, “Hardly enough to remark on.”  He exchanged glances with Merlin, adding thoughtfully, “I think that I might have heard a skirmish occurring to the north of us, which might have drawn away the worst of it.”  Merlin nodded, instantly agreeing.  Roxy sighed gustily in hopelessness and dropped it. 

Although she did mutter under her breath as he moved forward, “Working with you two is like dealing with an old psychopathic married couple.”

Both Hounds heard her and immediately fixed her with innocently bemused glances.  “We haven’t been a couple in years,” Merlin murmured to Harry, frowning and a bit offended, “So that’s hardly a fair assessment.” 

If Roxy heard them, she didn’t say so.  However, she did raise her voice a bit and harden it as she quickly commanded, “Come on!  Let’s find this signal jammer that you say is here, so that Merlin can reprogram it.”

It wasn’t hard to find.  Whatever ruckus has drawn most of C’s men away, it had left only three guards around Q-branch – dead now, earlier noted.  They hadn’t been Hounds, so they hadn’t stood a chance.  While Roxy and Merlin hunted up flashlights to shed a bit more light on the situation so that Merlin could get to work, Harry kept watch, all the while with his hand itching towards the phone in his pocket.  He wanted to text Eggsy and let the boy know that they’d reached their target, but at the same time, he knew that it was stupid to share more information than necessary over such an insecure channel.  He’d been trained better than that.

He wanted to do it anyway.

“Oh, now aren’t you lovely...” Merlin hummed, kneeling next to the signal jammer.

Roxy’s voice was wry, “How come you never talk to me in that tone?”

While Merlin sputtered and tried to come up with some sort of gentlemanly response (and Roxy just let him suffer, something patient and slightly vengeful in her eyes), Harry turned abruptly back to them and said as lightly as he could, “Do the two of you have things handled here?”

The other two fell silence, heads whipping Harry’s way.  Roxy was the first to speak, “You’re heading back to Oxford, aren’t you?”

Keeping his face bland and tone reasonable, Harry nodded like it wasn’t’ a big deal.  “Considering his strategic position in the hanger, it would be unwise to leave him without back-up any longer than necessary.”

Roxy bit the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, but ultimately, all she said was, “All right.  Yes, we can handle ourselves if you leave.”

Not wanting to waste time or words, Harry gave a perfunctory nod and turned to leave.  Merlin’s voice stopped him: “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Back to them, Harry paused and smiled.  “Why ever would I do something stupid?” he called back jovially because continuing on his way again, out of Q-branch and back into the darkness of a besieged Eigengrau.

Roxy and Merlin exchanged looks when he left, and despite their antagonism of a moment before, there was understanding in both of their eyes.  Merlin was the one who belatedly answered Harry’s question, sighing almost sadly, “Because Harry has a terrible habit of doing stupid things when he cares about someone.”

~^~

It should have been very simple: Shaw had threatened them, and Will was now attacking her, so all Q had to do was side with Will.  Unfortunately, it was not that simple, as Will was a raving maniac who continued to shout Bible verses and hatred in a vitriolic mass.  He wasn’t even speaking in the same cadence and tone as he had been before being shot in the head, although up until now, Will hadn’t spoken much… and head-wounds were pretty good excuses for sudden personality changes.  Either way, Q found his loyalty torn, because as grateful as he was for Will saving them from Shaw, Q now found himself wanting to save Shaw in turn. 

No longer burdened by his messenger bag, Q focused on the gun – still lying on the floor, Will uninterested in it and Shaw unable to go for it without turning her back on the psychotic mess intent on killing her.  Will had blood completely coating one side of his face and it was unlikely that he could see out of one eye, but the eerie skill which which he was holding his own indicated that he must have been fighting on instinct.  Not wanting to add guns to those instincts, Q took a deep breath, steeled himself, and bolted forward.

His various bruises and battered ribs didn’t appreciate the movement, but Q gritted his teeth through it.  He also blocked out the fight next to him, knowing that he’d lose his nerve if he really thought about how close he was getting to it – unfortunately, ignoring something didn’t make it go away.  Just as Q was about to swoop down on the gun (his ribs were already screaming in pre-emptive protest), a body collided with him.  It was so sudden that Q didn’t even know which fighter it was at first, and he couldn’t react, the impact not only knowing him off his feet and into the wall, but jarring his injuries.  The flair of pain along his left side was like a fire coming to life; Q was a lit match, recently struck.  He was aware of crying out, but he didn’t know how long it was before he opened his eyes, struggling to breathe past ribs that suddenly felt like glass shards. 

When he blinked, focusing again, he found himself staring at Will’s bloodied figure – free of Shaw now, gun in hand, and weapon pointed straight at Q.

“Will – Will, stop!” Q rasped out, voice reedy from the barely fading pain.  He held out empty hands in a gesture of harmlessness, but nearly drew them back at the unsettling look of non-recognition in Will’s eyes.  That prompted the Quartermaster to go on, “Will, you know me.  I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You _cannot_ hurt me,” Will said with almost unsettling steadiness, “For I am a messenger of God.  His left hand.”  The steadiness cracked, but only to give way to fanaticism, blood visible on Will’s teeth as he smiled.  “The right hand advises – the left _punishes_.  And I am honored by my task-”

Before Q had to think past the pain for a way to respond to that, and before Will could complete his ‘task’ (verbally or otherwise), Shaw suddenly re-entered the picture.  Will had honestly never been so relieved to see a Hound who wasn’t 007, and he sagged down against the wall as she jumped on Will’s back.  Unfortunately, instead of going for the gun, Shaw instead used her arms for a choke-hold, leaving Q to swiftly re-calculate and then scramble back as much as he could.  There was nothing but bare hallway at his back, however, so it was really only luck that kept him from getting shot.  Will couldn’t seem to decide who to shoot, so when he pulled the trigger, it missed both of them, and before he could make up his mind, Shaw’s efficient choke-hold was having an effect.  In seconds, Will’s wild eyes were rolling up in his head, and his dark-haired, blood-smeared form was sagging in Shaw’s grip.  For a second, it looked like she’d keep her arm locked around his throat until he went from unconscious to dead, but when Q forced himself to his feet and looked at her, she read something in the Quartermaster’s features that made her rethink that.  She let Will’s limp body slide to the floor and instead fell back to sit on her arse, panting and a bit wild around the eyes herself.  “So this crazy shit is seriously a friend of yours?” she got out between breaths, indicating Will with clear disbelief all over her face.  Shaw was not known for beating around the bush.

Sitting down again himself, feeling the drop of adrenalin like an impending dizziness at the base of his skull, Q nodded helplessly.  Then, he had to ask in return, more hesitantly, “Thanks for the save… I think?”

Shaw just leaned back on her hands and waved a dismissive hand.  When she proceeded to drop her head back, relaxing and catching her breath, Q dared to come forward for the sake of checking on Will.  The high-Pass agent didn’t even bother to raise her head, Q apparently not enough of a threat to garner her attention right now. 

“So… you’re not going to kill me?” Q had to ask, because the uncertainty actually made him more nervous.  “You know who I am.”  The last wasn’t a question.  Kneeling now at Will’s side, he switched his attention between watching the dangerous woman and checking on his rather scary companion.  Will was breathing and his pulse was good, and Q was quick to find where the blood was coming from on Will’s head – the bullet looked like it had just grazed his skull, above his left temple.  His hair was already matted over it, but Q tore a strip from the other man’s shirt anyway to create a compress. 

Shaw had silently shaken her head.  Not one for lots of words, Shaw. 

Q, however, lived off words, so despite the fact that it was probably a very foolish question to ask, he found his mouth and vocal cords shaping the words, “May I ask why?”

“Maybe,” a new voice said cheerily, piping up from the kink in the hallway behind Shaw, “it’s because she realizes that you’re worth _so_ much more alive!”

Both Q and Shaw jumped, the latter twisting around and into a crouch – although her movements were just the tiniest bit sluggish, a testament to the fray she’d pulled herself out of so recently.  Q, still aching and presently busy stemming the blood-flow from Will’s head-wound, could only kneel, frozen, as an all-too-familiar, grinning figure strolled around the corner and into view.  C.

And it got worse, as other people spilled into view: Hounds, their strides unmistakably dangerous even if Q hadn’t already seen them all face-to-face.  Eleven, Twelve – even Seventeen, her darkly-kohled eyes already slitted in obvious amusement.  Then Q saw another face that he’d only gotten brief glimpses of, when the tall, lean man had been chasing him out of Q-branch on Day 1 of the siege: 'Seb,' he thought he’d heard C call the man.  He, too, radiated lethality on a level that told Q there was no way this man was low-Pass.  There were three others, too, but they didn’t even register next to this all-star team, and Q found his heart dropping. 

He thought he heard the faintest noise in the hall behind him, but when Q glanced back, he saw nothing.  Telling himself that he couldn’t depend upon his own team of Hounds to rescue him now that shit had well and truly hit the fan, Q turned back to C again, who was smiling so broadly it looked like his face might tear.  Q realized the possibility then that C had more men, in the hallway behind – and that those men might have just killed Hannibal and James.  The thought made Q’s world shatter in a way it hadn’t until now.

By this point, Shaw had gotten to her feet, but she looked uncertain as to what to do.  She was effectively in the middle of things, and by the tension Q could see in her back and shoulders, she didn’t like it.  Shaw was, before all else, a woman with strong self-preservation skills, and a keen eye for threats – and by the way she and the other Hounds were visibly measuring one another up, there were threats aplenty waiting in the wings. 

C, apparently immune to it all, despite the fact that he was physically the opposite of intimidating, stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked forward and back on his feet.  “How nice to see you again, Quartermaster!  Or can I call you Q?” he greeted brightly, rolling right along, “I’ll call you Q.  I feel like we know each other after you and I ran into each other at Q-branch… when was that?”  He pulled a hand back out of his pocket to tap thoughtfully at his lips.  “Was that a whole week ago, Sebastian?” he asked to the man who had loomed up behind him like his own personal shadow.

Sebastian’s eyes were on Q, as flat and emotionless as the gaze of a shark, and just as cool.  “Days,” he corrected absently.  Where there was a live-wire electricity in C, there was an absolute-zero stillness and cold to Sebastian.  The contrast was both uncanny and utterly unsettling, that two such different people could end up so tightly in league. 

“R-r-r-right!” C dragged the word out, stabbing a finger up in the air as if to pin it down in his excitement.  Then his attitude mellowed to something sweet and poisonous as he turned his full focus back to Q.  “And yet it feels like I’ve known you for years.  Shall we do some real introductions?”

A feeling of deep, uneasy sickness was starting up in Q’s stomach as he crouched where he was, breathless and still.  He didn’t remove his hand from Will’s bleeding head, or answer, having the sinking feeling that talking would only make things worse.

For a moment C just watched him, his large, dark eyes narrowed to pleased slits and his smile fixed.  Then, just as the tension began to make _everyone_ uncomfortable (except maybe Eleven, a blonde who looked like she could be Bond’s sister with an extra dose of ‘unflappable’ mixed in), C suddenly rolled his eyes expansively and said, “Okay, I guess that that can wait until a good old-fashioned frisking!  Seb, see if our new friend has that toy we were looking for.”

Q tensed and felt his heart skip a beat, feeling trapped even as his eyes skipped over to Sebastian.  The man was giving his eyes a more subtle roll than what C had given, but as he stepped past his boss, Sebastian could be just barely heard to mutter, “Do you have to say ‘toys’ like it’s a sex object?”

C’s face collapsed into a scrunched glower.  “So rude!”  Seb ignored it, and kept walking towards Q as if nothing else in the world was worth his interest. 

Q almost bolted then, his body actually tensing and twitching as if to leap to his feet and away – but then he felt Will’s blood against his fingertips, and recalled the head beneath his hands, the touch connecting them like a leash.  True, Will had tried to kill him, but they'd also been allies, and right now Graham was more helpless than even Q.  Looking helplessly down at the unconscious profiler, Q didn’t end up moving until he was forced to, Sebastian’s big hands catching him by his shirt-collar and dragging him to his feet.  The man was not gentle.  Everything was just a blur of motion for a bit as Q found himself jerked away from Will and backed into the wall, all of it jarring his shoulder enough to make him yelp.  Distracted by the flare of pain, he didn’t put up any fight as C’s man ran rough but efficient hands over him, spinning Q around a moment later and repeating the process from behind.  It was thorough, embarrassing, and deeply intimidating, but at least Q knew that he didn’t have anything to hide.  He had literally nothing on him at this point – not even his little scalpel, which he’d forgotten in his satchel. 

When Q was released to turn shakily around again, he was met with dispassionately cold eyes almost as pale as 007’s, and then Seb was dismissing him, looking back to C.  “He’s clean.  Nothing on him, unless you think he’d be bold enough to swallow it.”

“Tell me, Q, would you do something foolish like that?” C teased, walking away from the rest of the group to stride closer to Q.  Despite Sebastian’s disinterest in Q just a second ago, the tall man immediately put a hand on Q’s shoulder – a belaying grip, as if Q might be stupid enough to attack Seb’s boss at close range, even if Q apparently wasn’t stupid enough to swallow a technological device.  Unfortunately, it was Q’s left shoulder, close enough to his stitches to make him hiss and wince. 

But before C could come any closer, he paused next to Will’s head, looking down.  Q’s mouth went dry. 

“I sure hope you weren’t that stupid,” C continued to say, but now it was mumbled, as he looked down and even gave Will a little nudge with one foot.  Q clenched his hands until they hurt, trying not to react.  Everyone else just watched, only Shaw seeming the faintest bit troubled, and that was probably only because she feared C would wake Will up again.  “Because if you were, well, then you have nothing to offer – and then you and your little friend here will have to die.”  C looked up, pushing his lips together and widening his eyes in a jarringly puppyish look of bemusement as he asked, “You are friends, aren’t you?”  At the same time that he asked, he moved his foot to press the toe of it down across Will’s larynx. 

Q couldn’t help it; he jerked forward, starting to demand that C stop.  He was cut off by Seb suddenly moving, catching Q’s throat in a calloused, capable hand.  Pinned to the wall and struggling, Q at least took some small comfort in seeing that C had lost interest in Will and was approaching again.  Q panted against the uncomfortable squeeze but forced his eyes open so that he could meet C’s unblinking stare from up close when the shorter man stopped right in front of him.  Seb growled, clearly wanting C to back off, but was ignored.  Apparently C didn’t really listen to his bodyguard much, if that was what these two even were to teach other.

“You-” C said, reaching forward and walking two fingers up Q’s chest.  When Q went to bat the hand away, Seb caught Q’s wrist and pinned it up next to his head, warning in every line of his big, rangy frame.  C went on, unperturbed, “-Are going to give me the little key you stole from under my nose.  It was cleverly done, but now you’re in my way, much like a certain other person was in my way.”  C’s eyes glinted and Q felt that flash of panic go through his heart again.  There was a whole different conversation going on between the lines here, and Q wanted to keep as far away from it as possible. 

Trying to think while also trying to get enough oxygen, Q squirmed a bit and closed his eyes for a second.  He wanted to say that he didn’t know what C was talking about, but the problem was that he possibly did.  Some pieces were falling together in his head, forming an unpleasant puzzle.  Q needed to keep C on the line, though, and for that Q needed to stay useful, so by the time Q opened his eyes again, he had a fumbling answer on his tongue.  “I-I don’t have it on me-”

“Well, I _know_ that,” C huffed dramatically.

Q hurried on in a reedy gasp, “-But I can take you to it.”

“How about you just tell us where it is?” Sebastian countered, even as he moved more into Q’s line of sight.  He didn’t hesitate to shoulder C (gently) out of the way, filling up Q’s entire vision with his remorseless expression.  It was a handsome face, but it was carved out of something unfeeling and cold, something so unrelentingly inhuman in his eyes that Q started trying to escape again instinctively. 

“Now, now, boys,” C cut back in again.  He and Seb had definitely worked together for sometime now, for there was no other explanation for how unhesitantly C pulled and tugged at Seb’s shirt to make the larger man back off again.  Seb made an annoyed face but otherwise complied until he was just holding Q by his one wrist against the wall.  Coughing and panicky, Q tried desperately to keep his thoughts in order, knowing that he couldn’t slip up now.  C continued pleasantly, “I’m sure we can all get along.  And Q, you’re smart, aren’t you?”  There it was again: that knowing look, that singsong tone that said it held secrets.  Then C shifted tactics to instead put on a sickeningly sympathetic face, squeezing Q’s cheeks in between his hands without warning.  “You’re afraid we’ll do away with you if you give up the information, aren’t you?  You poor thing.” 

Q ripped his head back, but said nothing.  C had hit the nail on the head, so it saved Q from having to make the point himself – although he could have done without all he touching.  When C grinned broadly again, clearly taking the silence for agreement, Q got his mouth working to say as firmly as possible, “If you want me to lead you to your prize, you have to keep us alive – both of us.  Me and Will.”

“Okay then,” C gave in surprisingly quickly.  “Percy,” he yelled over his shoulder, the sudden volume actually making a few people jump.  C frowned, paused, then said in a more normal, thoughtful volume, “It is ‘Percy,’ right…?”

Agent 012 - David Percival - stepped forward with a long-suffering, exasperated look on his face, muttering, “Close enough,” under his breath.

“See that Mr. Will doesn’t bleed out on the floor, will you?”

While Q already knew Twelve to be the belligerent type, he apparently knew what was good for him, because after fixing a grumpy frown in place, he stalked forward and dropped down onto his haunches near Will.  Q watched, nervous, but was relieved to see the high-Pass agent performing efficient first-aid instead of making matters worse.  Of course, right when Q started to relax the tiniest bit, C added, “Oh, and tie him up, too!  A little bit of bondage is good for the soul!” 

Optimism falling back down to more sensible levels again, Q sighed and sagged back against the wall.  Perhaps it was for the best; Will was apparently a pretty dangerous sort of ally, and as liable to kill Q as help him get out of this mess. 

“You know, I don’t think that this is entirely fair,” C said suddenly and expansively, stepping away from Q to stride about amongst everyone.  Q had started to notice that the Director-General was quite a showman, and it was worrisome to see him drawing everyone’s attention again – like a ringleader right before the final act.  “I mean, I’ve given you some very important things right now, out of the goodness of my heart.  I’m helping your little friend and might even let him live through all of this, and I’ve promised your safety, too – in return for what?  A little gadget?”  C scoffed like that was nothing, although the Hounds seemed not to quite agree.  Standing a bit apart from everyone, Shaw even lifted a hand to touch her collar, affixed to her neck until they found that ‘little gadget.’ 

C was just warming up, though, and he knew his audience. 

“I think I want more from you, Quartermaster.”  His voice slipped to a pleasant but completely fabricated tenor as he turned to face Q from across the hall.  His smile was beatific.  “I want M.”

Q blinked, startled.  This was not where he’d expected this talk to go.  “What?” he said back, lacking anything else to say.  Sebastian still had hold of his arm, but suddenly Q was a bit too bewildered to care.  “How am I supposed to help you with that?”  He meant it to sound defiant, but instead it came out sounding more sincere – because he had honestly no idea.

By C’s growing smile, that was exactly the response he’d been hoping for.  All eyes were now on the exchange, even Percival’s, as he finished wrapping Will’s head with bit of Will’s own torn shirt.  C let the dramatic pause stretch a moment more, before clapping his hands and saying, “How right of you.  Because you’re right, Q – or should I call you _Holmes_?” 

The bottom fell right out of Q’s stomach.  His entire body went cold in a way it hadn’t even when Eigengrau’s heat had been turned off. 

“You can give me part of the puzzle, but ultimately, you’re useless,” C dismissed Q without compunction.  In fact, something like disgust curled his lip, and suddenly all of his previous fascination with Q was shown for what it was: a façade.  C was as cold underneath as Sebastian was outwardly.  “Your brother, though…”  Some of that interest came back, but it was so razor-sharp that it was like a different expression altogether.  It made Q flinch just to look at it.  Something fanatic lit C’s eyes as he stepped back up to Q again, actually putting the toes of his shoes on top of the toes of Q’s.  Seb’s grip on Q’s wrist became crushingly tight, but Q barely felt it, all of his attention on the grinning maniac he was nose-to-nose with.

“What do you say, little Holmes?” C hissed in Q’s face, “Is it time to give a shout out to that bloodhound brother of yours - and see if Sherlock can hunt down M as well as he tried to hunt down _me_?”

~^~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well then, the cat's out of the bag now. All the cats. Well, not all the cats. Some are still in the bag, but plural-cats definitely just got out. 
> 
> Next chapter: it's time to see what Hannibal and James were doing this whole time, isn't it? To keep them from saving their dark-haired counterparts?


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q's in a helluva lot of trouble - but at least Mallory and Alec are reunited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long absence! This wasn't abandoned, I swear - I was just bogged down by school :P I've got a bit of time on my hands, though, so let's see if I can't get this baby rollin' again... *cracks knuckles in preparation for some chaos*

C knew… C knew that Q was a Holmes.  C knew about Sherlock.  The pieces of an old puzzle, long in the making, slid fully into place in Q’s head, and he accused in a whisper, “You’re Moriarty.”

The Director-General’s eyes glinted.  “Sometimes,” he drawled, pleased as punch.  No one else got the significance of this, and before Q could demand more information, C spun around again to face his cronies, hands lifted dramatically.  “Guess what, everyone?  Q here is related to one of your brethren!”

Twelve, standing now over Will like a British buzzard over an American kill, immediately frowned and asked, “Who?”

“Oh, that’s right,” C snapped his fingers, “From what I heard, Sherly got himself into trouble before he could make friends instead of enemies.  But he was given the number ‘Ten,’ right?”  The man turned to Q conversationally for an answer, to which Q stubbornly clenched his jaw.  Undeterred, C waved him off with a flap of his hand and continued, “Nooooo matter - you’re all free now, and I must admit that Sherlock is _brilliant_ at finding things he shouldn’t.”  If Q wasn’t mistaken, C was fangirling…  “I can’t be _lieve_ I didn’t consider this earlier!”  

No one else seemed to be following this line of thought; even Seb had a dangerously bored look on his face, and he sighed loudly from where he kept Q’s right wrist pinned to the wall at head height.  It fell upon Twelve to again speak up, saying with barely restrained exasperation, “What the hell are you talking about?”  From his strained tone, this wasn’t the first time he’d thought this, or perhaps even the first time he’d said it.  

C made a frustrated noise in his throat that was massively theatrical, and he looked at the ceiling as he swung around on one heel to face the man who’d spoken.  “I’m _saying_ ,” he dragged the words out as if talking to idiots, and for a second, it was so like Sherlock that Q was emotionally jarred, “that even if Q here doesn’t know how to find M, his brother will, so all we have to do is use him as…  What’s the word, Seb?”  Suddenly C’s smile turned beatific and playful.

Expression long-suffering but eyes cold, Seb answered from Q’s side like a death-knell tolling, “Leverage.”

“BINGO!” C roared, the sudden volume making even some of the Hounds startle in surprise.  “This is everyone’s lucky day - Q, you get to be useful enough to live, and everyone else, we get someone besides ourselves to do the hard work, because laziness is _fun_.”  The female Hounds 011 and 017 exchanged glances, shrugged, and nodded, being in general agreement about this.  C calmed down suddenly to drum the fingers of one hand against his lower lip - again, a gesture that Sherlock was known for, and Q suddenly wondered if this psychopath was doing it on purpose.  “Let’s see, let’s see…  What’s the best way to do this?”

“We’re not far from a guard-station,” Seb stepped in.  Q got the sense that Sebastian was a patient man, but that even he had limits, and C’s showboating was draining him.  “If the Quartermaster was able to use the comm systems earlier, I’m sure he can get another one working and we can get the word out to his brother.”  

Things were swiftly spiraling out of control.  Vainly, Q tried to derail this plan, or at least this train of thought, speaking up desperately, “No, that-!”  But before he could say anything more, Sebastian’s grip on his arm changed, and with a hard yank, Q was dragged forward and off-balance.  Before he could catch himself, his arm had been twisted up behind him.  Further argument came second to struggling, although all that got him was a hard kick to his calves that sent him to his knees, one of Seb’s hands still on his forearm and the other now fisted in the hair at the back of his head.  

C made a whining noise of regret.  “And here I was hoping you two would be friends,” he pouted, then sighed and snapped his fingers impatiently.  “Well, kiddies, there’s no point in wasting any more time.  To the guardhouse we go!  It’s finally time that Sherlock and I connected, don’t you think, _Siger_?”  

Q hadn’t heard his given first name in so long that it almost didn’t register.  He managed to set his face into a glare, however, to hide the fact that he was terrified.  In return, C merely smiled at him, slow and sly and full of a wicked mirth like poison.

~^~

Alec hadn’t managed to find as much in Medical as he’d have liked, but he’d still managed to scrounge up a messenger bag and fill it with a few things that would hopefully prove useful.  He was at once regretful and glad that he hadn’t dragged Mallory along with him - because perhaps they could have found out what was ailing M if he’d physically come to Medical, but that would have meant stepping into that firefight between Shaw and Reese.  A firefight that had become rather literal in the ‘fire’ category, although Alec had only himself to blame for that…  The scent of smoke still clung to him, and he purposefully didn’t think about Root, the wild, animal look in her eyes highlighted by flames.

These were the days when Alec totally understood why Eigengrau existed, and why he was locked up in it.

Managing to avoid trouble on the way back, Alec circled unhesitantly towards the morgue’s back entrance, pace speeding up a bit as he got close.  “Get a grip on yourself, Alec,” he muttered to himself, slowing his footsteps with effort, “It wouldn’t do to seem too eager, would it?”  Joking aside, Alec wasn’t really sure how to justify the feeling of camaraderie that he’d developed towards Mallory, the man who was essentially his jailer.  Perhaps it was because Alec was one of those few Hounds who looked at himself in the mirror, eyed the permanent collar around his neck, and didn’t necessarily feel a boiling anger.  Acceptance was easier, and he’d accepted the torc long ago.

Regardless of how aware Alec was of his loose morals and dangerous disposition, he _did_ feel the need to do the honorable thing and make sure the head of Eigengrau survived this.  Why did Alec feel this way?  He told himself that it was because the Quartermaster had made a strong logical argument in favor of that idea.  Yup.  That was totally what governed Alec’s decisions: logic.

Still struggling not to look too closely at his new loyalties, Alec opened the morgue doors and stepped in, immediately freezing.  All he saw was Mallory, but the man was sitting up on table instead of lying down as Alec had left him, and something about the steady but strained look on his face set off uncertain warning bells in Alec’s head.

The warnings bells became a helluva lot less uncertain when Mallory said placatingly, “Just take it easy, Alec.”

The Hound was immediately reaching for his gun, but before he could, a small but determined-looking blond-haired man stepped into view, weapon already trained on target.  His attire and lack of a collar identified him as a Handler, and Alec found himself immediately categorizing him as an enemy.  “Hands where I can see them, 006,” the Handler said, stern and forceful.  The tone also said that he’d definitely shoot, and Alec’s eyes were trained enough to see two pounds of pressure on a three-pound trigger.  The Hound still refused to obey, a fuck-you sort of growl rising in his throat instead.  The Handler knew rebellion when he saw it, and firmed up his stance, commanding levelly, “If you don’t take your hand away from your weapon and lie down on the floor right now, I’m going to have to shoot you.”  His tone and eyes still spoke of very little hesitancy, the gaze of a man who’d done it before.

Well, Alec had shot and killed people, too, and he was willing to bet that he had more experience being at the business end of a gun than this bloke did, so-

“Alec.”  Mallory’s voice again, this time sounding a bit pleading.  “Alec, he’s an ally.”

“Do all of your allies aim guns at you, King?” Alec shot back with his best approximation of devil-may-care humor, cracking a smile that was all teeth and no humor.  His eyes never left the Handler – who, sadly, was smart enough to realize that guns were best used as distance weapons, and was far enough away that Alec didn’t like the odds of charging him.  He preferred the idiots that liked to walk the gun right up to you, meaning to intimidate when really all it did was give Alec an opportunity to disarm his opponent.  That’s how James had eventually gotten the drop on his last Handler, although at the time, Hounds had had to worry about their collars being set off, too.  The odds were a bit better now.

Alec was in the middle of weighing the pros and cons of different modes of attack when Mallory again repeated his name, “ _Alec,_ they’re here to help.”

“ ‘They’?”  Trevelyan was too smart to take his eyes off the Handler, but his other senses stretched out, taking in everything about the room.  He didn’t hear anything, but the morgue was L-shaped, so he couldn’t view all of it from here.

“John Watson came here with another Hound from Holding, Sherlock,” Mallory tried to explain patiently while Alec continued to level death-threats at this Watson character with his eyes.  “And Watson had medical training – he’s a doctor.”

“Funny, he looks like a Handler.”  Alec was not in a mood to be charitable, and his hand was still tensed to go for his gun the second Watson gave him even a sliver of an opening.  By now, he’d watched the smaller man’s body language enough to know that Watson was dangerous – not high-Pass, but someone with killing experience nonetheless.

“He is a Handler,” Mallory explained patiently.  He sounded exhausted and strained beneath the calm, and it worried Alec more than he wanted to admit – worried and distracted him.  “He’s Holmes’ Handler.”

Alec recalled the name in an instant.  His grin returned, lopsided.   He spoke now to Watson in particular, drawling, “I met him.  My condolences.”  Now he heard an affronted noise, and pinpointed it in a heartbeat.  Raising his voice to something more carrying, Alec threatened with all of the remorse of a tropical storm, “And if you so much as think about joining in the fun here, I’ll rip you open and use you to mop up your own blood, Holmes.”

“Charming, but unnecessary,” came the low-voiced rejoinder from around the corner.  “I’m handcuffed to the main doors, which someone so effectively barricaded.  Your work?”

Alec didn’t answer, but Mallory was quick to step in and speak up before Alec or Watson could start at each other again, “It’s safe, Alec, I promise.”

“Really?”  Alec pointedly looked at Watson’s gun and raised one eyebrow.

This time Watson got a word in edgewise, “Oh, like you wouldn’t have shot me on sight.”

“I still might.”

“ _Trevelyan_!” Mallory snapped, and immediately regretted it, clutching his middle and struggling not to double over.  Alec heard him mutter “dammit” under his breath before going on in a manner more befitting the head of Eigengrau, “I need you to trust me right now, and do what Watson says.”

Alec was torn.  He’d refused to so much as glance away from Watson until now – even when he’d heard Holmes pipe up – but at M’s pain, he couldn’t help but sneak a glance.  Mallory wasn’t dead, but he was in bad shape, and if Watson really did have medical training, than he was sorely needed… even if he was also Alec’s natural enemy.  Although, to be frank, Mallory should have been Alec’s enemy, too, but he’d decided to trust him…  “I’m not doing this because it’s what Watson says, I’m doing it because it’s what _you_ say,” Alec decided stubbornly, but then did indeed raise both hands.  When Watson barked for him to get down on the floor, Alec looked at Mallory first, who gave a pained sigh and then a nod.  Only then did Alec obey.  The Hound snarled as he was disarmed, and as his hands were effectively dragged up behind his back and zip-tied, his ankles restrained as well.

“Is that really necessary?” Mallory asked tiredly.

“From where I’m standing,” Watson said, from where he had a knee on Alec’s back and could hear the nearly subsonic growling the Hound was emitting, “Yeah.”

Instead of letting it go, Mallory surprised everyone by defending Alec, “He’s the only reason I’m still alive right now, I’d like to point out.  If he was really out to kill us all, he’d have done me in already – or at least left me to the wolves.”

Watson’s knee eased off Alec’s back, and while the zipties didn’t disappear (and his gun remained confiscated), there was a discernable easing of tensions.  Still, the doctor/Handler took in a bracing breath and stated, “Yes, well, I’d like to point out that he’s in Eigengrau for a reason.”  Leaving it at that, Watson nonetheless did haul Alec up so that he could sit more or less comfortably against the wall.

Sherlock, not to be forgotten, called out lazily from out of sight, “Oh yes, because we’ve deduced that Sybil is _so_ good at-”

“Shut it, Sherlock!” Watson cut him off.  It sounded like he did this often.  Leaving Alec and standing up, Watson rubbed at the bridge of his nose like he did that pretty often, too.

Alec’s messenger bag had been removed from his shoulders before he’d been restrained.  Watson noticed it.  “What’s in here?”

When Alec belligerently refused to answer, Mallory sighed defeatedly and chimed in, “Alec left to fetch medical supplies.  I assume he found some.”

Watson had already opened the bag and proven that for himself.  His eyebrows jumped up, and he looked back at Alec was more respect now.  There was perhaps even the slightest hint of remorse over tying him up like a criminal.  To be fair, Alec usually _was_ a criminal, but it felt good to be vindicated this one time that he wasn’t.

“John!” Sherlock whined from around the corner, and there was the rattling of a cuff.

“Sherlock, you are not the injured party right now, so you can wait!” was John’s response.

Holmes immediately replied with evident exasperation, “Yes, but you already ascertained that said injured party isn’t _dying_ , so I don’t see why you can’t spare half a minute to release me and let me do my work.”

That was music to Alec’s ears.  “He’s not dying?”

Watson looked very harried, between his own Hound who wouldn’t shut up and this new Hound who kept surprising him with moments of humanity.  Finally, though, Watson just turned to the task at hand, bringing the medical supplies he needed over to Mallory while replying to Alec, “I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure M here just has a bruised kidney.  It’s painful and has some intimidating symptoms, but it’s not life-threatening.” In his hands he now held a bottle of pain meds that Alec had procured, as well as a bottle of water.

It was only after chasing down some pills that Mallory paused, sniffed the air, and then looked at Alec more closely.  “Why do you smell like a smokestack?” he asked with suspicion heavy on his tongue, although there was concern, too, “Are you all right?”

Shifting to get a bit more comfortable against the wall, Alec rolled one shoulder, feigning carelessness, “Just your average walk in the park.”  He paused for effect, then added a bit more morbidly, “When the park is full of madmen.”

“Calling the kettle black,” he thought he heard Holmes mutter from where he was leashed.  The fact that Sherlock was also included in that statement was not addressed.

“I may have started a fire,” Alec went on, while Watson continued to see to M.  Trevelyan kept a keen eye on the proceedings, even though he had to admit there was little chance of Watson hurting Eigengrau’s leader – if this Handler was willing to defend M against Alec, then he couldn’t be all bad.  Really, now that things had calmed down, Alec couldn’t fault Watson for his reactions.  “I also killed Root.”

Now Mallory and Watson were both looking at Alec, and the place filled with the sort of deathly quiet befitting a morgue.  Even Holmes had the good sense to say nothing.  It was Mallory who finally commanded, “Start from the beginning.”

While Alec ‘gave his report’ (something that came easily to him, surprisingly so), Watson kept working.  Apparently there wasn’t much to be done for a bruised kidney, although Alec’s supplies were put to relatively good use, making him feel inordinately pleased with himself.  Eventually, Watson left Mallory to instead go and check on Sherlock, and by then, the tensions between everyone had eased to manageable levels.  When Watson was out of sight, though, Mallory did take the time to silently mouth ‘ _I’m sorry_ ,’ eyes flicking meaningfully to Alec’s bound limbs.

No one had ever really apologized to Alec before – except other Hounds, perhaps – so he was momentarily startled, his story stumbling off his lips.  After a moment of bewildered blinking, however, he gave an awkward nod of acceptance and went on again, about how he suspected Reese of protecting someone.  He didn’t have anything but a hunch on that, but he needed something to get his story started again.  Once more on topic, he concluded with his killing of Root, parting ways with Reese, and proceeding from there with no more excitement.

“A pity, as Root is perhaps the most knowledgeable person besides C himself,” Sherlock’s baritone entered the conversation, from closer this time.  He and John walked back into view.  Sherlock was now standing leashed to John, a condition that made Alec very, very tempted to laugh – because being zip-tied was far less humiliating than being attached to someone like a reckless child in an airport with their parent.  Sherlock was staring at his cuffed wrist as if thinking the same.  He went on like it was obvious, “Since she’s the only Hound who’s made an appearance over intercom and, if I remember correctly – which I always do – has the necessary computer skills to engineer the malfunctioning of our collars, I can only conclude that she’s been in on this for some time.”  Everyone was staring at Holmes now, trying to digest all of this and follow Sherlock’s line of thought, but the tall Hound was already pivoting away.  “Come on, John, I need to look at the body.”

“The bod-?  What body?” Mallory tried to keep up.  He also tried to _get_ up, but was still in too much pain, and subsided quickly.  Alec eyed him with concern, troubled by the fact that he couldn’t catch the man if he fell.

“Captain Connor White’s body.”

“The man Lecter killed?”

Sherlock merely scoffed and kept walking towards his goal.  Watson, tugged along in Holmes’ wake, was left with the job of awkwardly explaining, “Sherlock doesn’t believe that Lecter did it, and… has some exhaustive explanations as for why.”  After a pause, John was good enough to add, “I believe him.”

Sherlock actually halted and turned.  “Thank you, John.”

“Don’t mention it.  Please don’t.”  Watson made shooing motions to get Sherlock back to his task, the two of them soon pulling open a drawer to reveal Captain White’s body.  By this point, Alec was starting to find Watson and Holmes’ relationship incredibly amusing.  The short Handler kept talking while Sherlock got to work, the line between them thankfully long enough to allow a bit of independent movement.  “Sherlock is hoping that by looking at the body, he can learn more about exactly what kind of person _did_ kill Captain White.”

“ ‘Hoping’?” Sherlock scoffed, and then went into a muttered tirade about how there was no hope to it, that a corpse always yielded up valuable information, and John crossed his arms awkwardly on the other side of said corpse and bickered back.

Alec, meanwhile, began to subtly test his bindings.  He caught Mallory watching him shrewdly a moment later, but when Alec flashed a big, innocent smile, M didn’t say anything – although he did roll his eyes and go back to questioning John and Sherlock about what they were discovering.

~^~

Having his arms tied behind him was not pleasant, and Q could feel the strain on his stitches as Moran marched him forward.  At the ungentle way that Percival had picked up Will, Q had put up a fuss – also dearly hoping that James, or even Hannibal, were still alive to hear him – but all that resulted in was the boffin being gagged now.  He found himself hoping that Graham would wake up and go psychotic again, because suddenly that looked like the only option to turn the tables.

Q tried desperately not to think about how James must be dead, instead focusing on the one good thing in this situation: they were moving away from Q-branch, away from H and the collar-key.  At least one of their little party had made it out of here alive, and surely H would check through Q’s bag before long, and realize what he had.

The walk to their destination didn’t take long, although by then, Moran had definitely imprinted a bruise on Q’s right upper arm from gripping so hard.  It had kept Q from falling on his face, true, but the man wasn’t sparing any consideration for the strength of his grip – or, more likely, wasn’t taking any chances with Q slipping free.  Moran’s other hand held a gun now, cocked and ready, and just by the look in his eyes, Q could tell that C’s right-hand-man was equally ready to shoot Q or to shoot forward to where Will was slung over Twelve’s shoulder.  Q didn’t doubt that Twelve would be considered acceptable collateral damage when the bullet went through Will and hit him, too.  

‘ _How are men like this not locked up in Eigengrau_?’ he found himself wondering in numb horror.  The horror only deepened when he recalled that he’d had a conversation about this, what felt like eons ago, with 007: ‘… _No matter what the government tells you,’_ Q had said to the agent, before the whole world had gone sideways, _‘the Sybil System messes up … Sybil picks favorites…_ ’  Looking around him, at C, and Moran, with their sadism but their lack of collars, Q suddenly wondered if these were ‘favorites’ like himself, Sherlock, and Mycroft.  The realization that what kept Q and his brothers [mostly] free was that same thing that allowed these men to flourish nearly made Q sick right there.  His world view had a crack down its center now, and suddenly his own stagnant Psychopass of 66 felt like a poisonous lie that he’d nurtured all of these years.

‘ _Am I just like them_?’ he found himself wondering despite himself.  He’d always known that Sybil was quirky, and clearly didn’t catch every high-Pass individual out there, but it had always seemed less like a flaw and more like a… flexibility to the rules.  It had made Q actually like the Sybil system more.  Sybil was a god who knew there were exceptions to every rule, and was willing to follow the spirit of the law more than the letter of it – thus allowing relatively harmless (but questionably high-Pass) folks like the Holmes boys to continue on with their lives.  But now it was clear that Sybil was seriously flawed – if not downright evil – because these men had never been caught either.

If there had ever been a god in Q’s life, it had been the Sybil system… but that god had been dethroned.

Q barely noticed as they reached their destination, a guard-station.  He was pushed forward into the main room, and barely kept his feet.  C was literally bouncing with excitement already, pondering the comm system while most of his cronies remained in the larger anteroom just outside.  Even if Will did wake up, he’d have to fight his way through that whole room.  Right now, though, Will was simply dumped on the floor in the middle of C’s cronies; Q could just glimpse him through the open door, with his skin pale and bandaged head bloody.

Moran grabbed his arms again – both of them this time, already muttering “I know, I know” when C complained about how Q couldn’t help him get the comms working if his hands were all tied up.  And since Q wouldn’t be able to provide any signs-of-life on the comms with his mouth covered, the gag was removed with a rough tug, too, the strip of cloth left to hang around his neck like a terribly ugly little scar – or like the collar Q probably deserved.

“Chop-chop, Siger!” C sang, clapping his hands and indicating the controls before them while Q massaged his wrists, “Times wasting, and I wouldn’t want something to happen to your little friend because of your slowness!”

Q was too shell-shocked by his own internal crisis to argue, although before he could move forward to do as he was told, Moran fisted a hand in the collar of his shirt.  Q’s shocked numbness was shattered swiftly as he felt hot breath against his ear but a voice as cold as ice inform him, “If you threaten Jim in any way, I’ll remove your friend’s head from his shoulders with a pocketknife while you watch.”

There was no question as to the threats sincerity, but the most curious part was perhaps the wording: it wasn’t ‘If you mess this up, I’ll-’ or even ‘If you don’t do as we say, I’ll-’ but instead a very specific ‘If you threaten Jim in any way.’  Jim, Q figured, was Moriarty’s first name – and Moran was apparently more attached to Moriarty than to this hostile takeover as a whole.  Before Q could think too much harder on that, though, he was released again, Moran stepping back as if nothing had happened to instead take up a position by the door.

C – Moriarty – was watching with evident glee.  He rubbed his hands together.  “Ready to have some fun, Siger?”

Beginning to actively hate the sound of his own birth name, Q avoided looking at those black-hole eyes and turned mechanically to the comm system instead.  “Just tell me what you want me to do,” he murmured without inflection.

“Oh, come on, Q, lighten up,” C coaxed, reaching over to squeeze Q’s shoulder companionably, seeming not to notice (or care) how Q flinched out from under the contact.  “Think of this as you calling home after a long vacation – you’ll get to talk to your favorite brother!  Unless Mycroft is your favorite?  Don’t say Mycroft is your favorite, I think he’s terribly stuffy.”

Q felt a shudder run down his spine at how much C knew about this family.  He hoped, in that moment, that Mycroft was still sulking over Q’s decision to hare off to Eigengrau, and therefore wouldn’t get himself involved.  There were already two Holmes brothers living a nightmare; the third didn’t need to be dragged into it, too.  The selfish part of Q hoped the opposite, of course, because as the youngest sibling, he still remembered the days when Mycroft had swanned in to rescue him from various things.  Q certainly needed rescuing now, but he doubted that even Mycroft could fix this hellish mess.

Skin crawling and dread curled up like a permanent condition in his gut, Q and Moriarty worked side-by-side to get the comm system up and running.  The madman was quite good with electronics, and kept up with Q easily, the two of them working sickeningly well together – a fact that Moriarty commented on more than once.  Q just kept this lips sealed, refusing to speak, because that was the one thing he could still withhold for now.  He found himself glancing back frequently, to Moran in the doorway and beyond, to where he could still catch sight of Will.

Q was in the middle of glancing back at Will one last time when Moriarty suddenly hooked an arm around his neck and tugged them both into a seat together.  It was a pretty large seat, but they were still entirely too close, like best friends taking selfies at a sleepover.  Q grimaced and squirmed as he cheek was pressed up against C’s, the arm around his neck surprisingly strong.  Q stopped struggling when he heard a brief, low noise behind him, however, and felt a hand – Moran’s, he knew without looking – fisting in his hair.  In his protectiveness of Moriarty, Moran was not subtle.

“Eeeeee!  I’m so excited!” C cheered in a stage-whisper, the one eye near Q’s rolling his way.  Q’s bad left side was pressed up against the man, ribs and shoulder aching fiercely.  “I know that we’ve both already had our debut performances – but let's do the encore together, shall we?” Moriarty offered with a suggestive waggle of eyebrows, and then pulled the mic close with his free hand.  The sound of it flicking on sent a little crackle of feedback through the air, and the way it echoed from outside proved that the system was working.

“Testing, testing!” Moriarty called in a voice like a sports announcer, before he slipped into something darker and more crooning to amend, “or is it ‘Mayday, mayday’? Depends on who’s staying on the plane and who’s got a parachute, I suppose.  But I bet you’re wondering why I called you all here today _again_.”  He was so pleased with himself that it was veritably oozing out of him, and Q wanted to crawl right out of his skin – Moriarty’s arm around his throat and Moran’s in his hair kept him still, however, even though only half of his arse was even properly on the chair.  Moriarty had to be in the same situation, but it wasn’t slowing him down.  “Well, I’m here to make a delightful announcement!  I’m here… with the Quartermaster!  Or should I say-”  C’s voice dropped multiple octaves, from a cherubic chatter to a low, almost demonic purr, “-Siger Q. Holmes?”  He paused for dramatic effect, and Q closed his eyes, imagining Sherlock hearing those words – they wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, except maybe M, who had hired a Mr. Quinlen Finch…  “You listening, Sherlock?”

Q knew what was next, even before the mic was shoved closer to his face and Moran’s fist tightened in his hair, controlling the very movements of his head and sending sparks of bright pain dancing across his scalp.  Q grunted, but didn’t say anything until Moriarty prompted, “Come on, now, Siger, how can this be a social visit if you’re not social?”

Q didn’t know what to say, but when Moriarty’s arm around his neck squeezed tighter, it pressed against the stitches and made Q yelp.  He tried to clench his teeth after that, knowing that sounds of pain would only feed C’s theatrics, but then Moran called back to the room behind them, “Hela?  Cut the other one’s ear off.  I don’t care which ear.”

Horror surged through Q’s system even before he heard Hela – 017 – reply, “With pleasure.”

“No!   _No_ – stop!” Q shouted, his voice and struggling both now at full strength.  He thrashed, but both Moriarty and Moran had more than enough hands to hold him still with, and they did it with merciless effectiveness.  “I’ll talk!  Just don’t hurt him!”

There were dark chuckles in the room behind him, but at least Q heard Moran call the others off, ceasing the threat as easily as he’d started it.  Q was left with his heart beating painfully hard in his chest and defeat like a mouthful of nettles he’d just swallowed.  Moriarty was giggling manically, head thrown back.

“As you can no doubt hear, Sherly, I have your dear baby brother.  What do I plan to do with him, you’re no doubt asking,” Moriarty went on, shutting off the laughter so quickly that it was like the noise had never existed.  He leaned into the mic until it all but brushed his mouth, “Well, that depends totally on you.  You see, you and I have been playing games, Sherlock.  Oh, such lovely games.  Games all over London.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  You’d better, because I have another game for you, only this time, there isn’t a body for you to find – yet.  So, here’s my deal.”  Moriarty’s eyes were narrowed in catlike glee as he finished, “I want M.  You want Q.  Bring M to the top floor observation room on the west side of Eigengrau 3pm tomorrow, and maybe we can trade?  I hope you have a way to tell time, Sherlock dear – and I hope that you can find a way to find your target, because I’m afraid there’s no negotiating this one.  Toodle-oo!”

And with that, he turned off the intercom.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well then, now that the 'brotherly reunions' is over... ;) I've high time we checked whether Bond is alive, isn't it? And what Hannibal decided to do with his spare time.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C's got his message out, but now he's got a message for Q: _You're just like me_
> 
> Meanwhile, James's fight with Billy Russo and Frank Castle does not go as planned...for anyone involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has basically 3 scenes: Q+Moriarty+Moran, Russo+Frank+James, and then we get back to Hannibal. READ THE WARNINGS FOR THAT MIDDLE SECTION! The section with Billy Russo is a brutal section, because that fandom is brutal, and Russo is a lot of angst in one place. Feel free to skip that section, and come back at the end - the last section with Hannibal should make perfect sense, and you don't lose too much plot by skipping "The Punisher" sections. 
> 
> WARNINGS: mentions of past child abuse, suicidal ideation, unhealthy masochism. There's a bit of threatened noncon with Q at the beginning, too, but that doesn't come to anything. Mostly... just don't read about Billy Russo unless you're looking for some hurt.

“Oh, that was _beautiful_ , Siger!” Moriarty immediately roared, putting down the mic to grip Q’s jaw and pull him in for an impulsive, wet smack on the lips. It was hard to avoid the kiss with Moriarty and Moran both still holding him, the latter man’s grip on his hair iron-tight.  When Moriarty pulled back to survey Q’s expression of startled disgust, his manic grin turned patronizingly sympathetic.  “Oh, Siggy, are you worried that you’re the bad-guy now?” he lamented, his face still entirely too close.  Q had a very real urge to bite him just for creating that nickname alone, but couldn’t move enough to even do that.  His scalp tingled painfully as Moran minutely adjusted his grip, impossibly managing to tighten it until Q winced.

Suddenly, without warning, Moriary was moving, a leg swinging over Q’s hips until he was straddling the youngest Holmes.  In all honesty, this was probably the only way they could both fit comfortably on this chair, but there was nothing comfortable about having a lap full of grinning psychopath.  “How about I let you in on a secret then?” Moriarty proposed, voice throaty and cheerful, like he had a song bubbling up inside of him that he thought Q would love.  When Q tried to shove the other man off him, Moran yanked his head back savagely while capturing Q’s right wrist.  Q’s other hand fisted in Moriarty’s shirt, but all the madman did was lean into it, fingers dancing across Q’s knuckles.  “You’ve been the villain aaaall along.  It’s deluding yourself into thinking that you’re the hero that’s got you all tied up in knots.”

“N-No,” Q gritted out, baring his teeth in desperate defiance.  He’d have punched the man straddling him, but the threat of Moran at his back was too real.

“Stop being so _stupid_!” Moriarty groaned with a melodramatic roll of his eyes before leaning in close again, putting his forehead against Q’s so that there was nothing to see but manic dark eyes.  “Don’t you see what we are, Siger?  You and I?  We’re viruses in the machine.”

Q struggled harder, Moriarty’s words as much as his proximity amping up the adrenaline in Q’s body.  “No,” Q repeated, more stubbornly, “No, don’t you dare compare us.  I’m not like you.”  Q’s words turned to a snarl of frustration as Moran, without any particular fanfare, as if this was just something he did every day, moved so that he was leaning in and wrapping restraining arms around Q’s torso.  Now Q was entirely too close to both men, Moran’s breath all but in his ear, Moriarty on top of him.

“All of you Holmes boys, I swear, can be so slow sometimes,” Moriarty huffed, backing off just a bit at least.  His weight settled on Q’s thighs and he reached out to poke Q’s nose.  “It’s a cute look on Sherlock, but on you it’s just sad.  You know what I think?”

“I imagine you’re going to tell me.”  Moran’s grip tightened threateningly; Q shut up.

Unbothered, Moriarty widened his eyes and leaned in again as if imparting the world’s secrets.  “I think that whoever told you that you’re the hero of this story is a sadist.  You were destined to fail, Q.”  This time, instead of booping Q’s nose, Moriarty’s index finger just stroked his cheek consolingly even as the man’s expression morphed itself into something full of sadness and pity.  Q squirmed valiantly but all he got was one of Moran’s arms around his throat while the other remained around his chest, squeezing him back against the chair while Moriarty shuffled even closer on his lap.  It was like being slowly consumed, a python’s swallow.  “Your morals sent you into the lion’s den, Siggy,” said Moriarty with regret, “and there are a lot more lions than you, and I’ve got a lot more teeth.”  He bared them for emphasis.

“I’ve got teeth, too,” Q tried to breathlessly threaten back, although he wasn’t sure if he even believed it now.

Surprisingly, though, instead of scoffing, Moriarty’s expression transformed instantly into an elated smile and he crowed right in Q’s face, “ _Bingo_ , Siggy!  Now you’re getting it!  Because you can hack into the Sybil System, too, can’t you?”  Apparently denial or confirmation wasn’t necessary, because Moriarty went on happily without much of a pause, “There’s your set of teeth right there.  Doesn’t it just make you want to rip the throat out of something?”

No, no it didn’t, but now it was undeniably clear that he and Moriarty were entirely too similar, gifted with the same inexplicable advantages.  Did Sybil have a deathwish?  Why the hell had she let a man like Moriarty into her systems?  And if Q was asking that question, then he also had to ask… why had she let Q in, too?

Without consciously deciding to, Q had stopped fighting.  Breathing a bit quickly, body tense and eyes scared, he simply sat with the two other men all around him.

Moriarty, after a slow, sleepy smile – once again changing temperaments in an eyeblink – gave a knowing nod and patted Q’s cheek.  “ _Finally_ , now you’re understanding the game.  Let’s hope your brother does, too.”  With that, Moriarty dismounted him, dancing away spryly but calling back over his shoulder, “Bind and gag him, Seb.  The clock says it’s past the bedtimes of all the little girls and boys, so we’re sleeping here tonight.”  His voice rang back, raucous and loud as rooster’s crow, “The game is afoot!!”

~^~

The intercom message had gotten out to everyone… and that included Hannibal.  While he was only mildly intrigued by the revelation about Q’s real name, what caught his attention like a fish-hook through the skin was the third voice that came growling across the feed: “ _Hela?  Cut the other one’s ear off.  I don’t care which ear_.”

Hannibal wasn’t an idiot; there were only so many people that ‘the other one’ could be, when he’d seen both Q and Will get snatched away.

Like any good predator, Hannibal was fully aware of his own limitations, and whenever possible, he liked to limit damage to his person – because even small wounds could cripple a hunter’s abilities to feed themselves.  Therefore, when Hannibal had finally reached Will and Q (the third man, H, no longer in evidence), he’d hung back instead of lunging forward as he wanted to.  A part of him had felt the urge to attack, seeing Will lying there on the ground with blood about his head – but the logical, greater part of Hannibal realized that Will was very likely dead already, and that even if he wasn’t, there was no chance of Hannibal wresting him away from so many others.  So Hannibal had tucked that oddly protective part of himself into the back of his mind, and had held back, trailing the group like a shadow.  It occurred to him that he was still putting himself in danger, hunting a pack that included no less than four monsters of his own caliber, but that threat wasn’t quite enough to get him to leave Will – who was, apparently, still alive.

Of course, when Hannibal heard the intercom message, he realized the likelihood that Will wouldn’t be alive much longer.

But then Q’s voice had rung out, protecting Will, and the Quartermaster had risen a bit more in Hannibal’s mind.  Hannibal respected loyalty.  He respected it even more when that loyalty connected to him in some way – and everything that had to will was intrinsically part of Hannibal now.  When the intercom went silent again, Hannibal cocked his head thoughtfully from where he stood in the hallway just around the corner from the guard-station.  This was all very intriguing.  And troublesome.  And inconvenient, because he found that he wanted Will back more by the second, but there was no conceivable way to do that because he was outnumbered almost ten to one.

Or perhaps ten to two…

Hannibal’s ears were almost as keen as his nose, and a small smile played across his face as he heard someone coming up the hall behind him.  Possibilities already playing in his head, the man spared one last look in the direction of his prize, and then began ambling the other way, to meet the new arrival.

James was late, but better late than never.

~^~

Billy Russo had always been pretty: probably a pretty baby, pretty toddler.  Pretty boy growing up in a group home where parents were the tooth-fairy, because no one believed in them but everyone kinda wanted them to materialize and give out money and the promise that they’d at least cherish the small bones of you.  Maybe it was being a pretty boy in a foster home that had turned him mean, because 'pretty' and 'vulnerable' went bad real quick, and Russo was more than pretty – he was a quick learner.  One set of hands on him that he didn’t want, and he knew he’d have to get meaner.  Barely ten and already he’d been forced to deduce that most kinds of ‘love’ out there in the world were evil.  He didn’t need any all-powerful, all-seeing machine to tell him that, and by the very broken age of eighteen, he hadn’t need any machine to tell him that he was a bit psychotic, too.  Psychotic got to keep breathing.  Ironically, psychotic also got into the military, and that’s where he met Frank Castle.

Frank wasn’t pretty.  In fact, the moment Billy had first seen him, he’d thought the older man was unsalvageably ugly.  By this point in time, Billy had been in the military for a number of years, and had also started to learn that pretty cut both ways – and if he could control who touched him, he could use it to his advantage, and that had allowed him to embrace his vanity as a certain kind of power.  He still wasn’t the biggest, most muscular guy, but he sure as hell was the meanest, and that helped him to look at himself in the mirror and not want to break the glass and use the pieces to cut the pretty right off his face.  By keeping himself looking nice, Billy could get things that he wanted now.  Frank, though… Frank would definitely never be using his looks for currency, and that idea was so novel that Billy found himself following the man around and just staring at him.  He had the kind of curiosity that small children had for amputees, that buzzards had for opossums that stank of death but rolled over and walked away.

“What the fuck are you starin’ at?” Frank asked him bluntly before long.

And Billy grinned at him, all white, straight teeth and the kind of daring that came from being almost as suicidal as he was a survivalist – a dichotomy of temperament that even he didn’t know how to deal with.  Some days he was more dangerous to others, some days more to himself.  “I’m not sure.  My first guess was a side of pounded beef, but it could be dirty cauliflower.  Was your nose born that broken?”  That had been one of Billy’s more suicidal days.  One of the days when he kinda wanted someone to bash the pretty right off his face for him.

But instead of rounding the mess-hall table to punch Billy’s lights out… Castle had laughed.  It was a low, rough sound that should have been unpleasant, like rocks grinding, or the sandpaper rasp of a lion’s tongue.  But Billy found himself shivering, because he liked it.  The sound was quiet, and not as angry as he’d expected, not as mean.  “Do you want to get a beating?” the other soldier actually asked, and the interesting part was that his tone wasn’t threatening – more honestly questioning and a bit surprised.

And he didn’t even call Billy ‘pretty boy’ at the end of his sentence.

Maybe that was why Billy kept his grin in place – but with just an ounce more playfulness – and volleyed charmingly right back, “Nah, that’s just how I make friends.”

And apparently it was, because Frank didn’t punch him, and Billy started sticking to him like glue, even after Billy kept teasing Frank about his looks and after Frank started calling him ‘pretty boy’ from time to time.  It meant something else when Frank said it, just like Billy meant something else when he teased.

~^~

The more Billy Russo and Frank Castle hung around, the more tempted other soldiers were to say that Billy was Frankie’s bitch.  But they never actually said it.  Why?  Because Frank Castle was protective of his friends, and for no reason that Billy could understand, he’d decided Billy was his friend.  Really, though, the reason that no one made sexual jokes about the two men’s closeness was because Billy was scary as fuck.  People who crossed Billy got messed up, and Billy didn’t regret it, not unless Frank found out – because Frank could make him regret it.  It wasn’t an easy process, of course, because while the Special Forces had done a lot to smooth down Billy’s rough edges and make him conform, he still had a problem with authority that liked to rear its ugly, ugly head at the most random of times, and often those times were when Frank tried to berate him about something he’d done.  Billy would get rebellious, Frank would get frustrated, and soon they’d be letting off steam in the only ways their bodies knew how.  Shouting; fighting.  Those were the languages that Billy knew, though, so he never shied away.  Ultimately, Frank was the better fighter, though, and would win – would pin Billy down and holler some sense into his face, or press him bodily up against the wall and burn him with a look of anger and disappointment.  Billy was used to cigarette burns and slow chokes into unconsciousness, though, so he took the lectures like a mother’s kiss to the cheek.  Maybe he learned something.  Maybe he learned that there were infinitely more kinds of violence than he’d previously dreamed, and he kinda liked Frankie’s brand.

Frank always got gruff and apologetic when it was over, but in the end, he was a tough man, too.  And maybe he realized that Billy Russo wouldn’t listen to any other kind of ‘talking.’

The American version of the Sybil System (creatively called ‘the Machine’) didn’t have Psychopass numbers, and maybe that made it a bit easier for the military to bend the rules and let dangerous men like Billy and Frank join equally dangerous men in the Cerberus Squad.  Most people who were a danger to society got locked away or executed – but some were useful, so they stayed.

So Billy Russo made sure that he was _damn_ useful.

The only reason Billy knew that killing people should’ve been harder on him was because he could see that it was sometimes hard on Castle, and Billy was Castle’s shadow by this point.  Still, even Frank’s morals didn’t stand up long to the kind of jobs the Special Forces had them doing below the radar, and it was an open secret that Frank Castle was as close to a human killing machine that most of those military men had ever seen.  Billy idolized him; Billy learned from him.

But Billy had a lot of tricks that Frank Castle didn’t have a whisper of.

Castle could fight his way out of practically anything, although it often ended with him hospitalized with a helluva lot of bullet-holes.  The man was a berserker, but even berserkers could die of complications later, after the job was done and the frenzy had burned away.  So when their team was sent in, and Billy saw a situation that even Castle couldn’t safely brawl their way out of, he got to work.  He had a pretty face and a smile that people wanted to return, and he was just slim enough that his athletic build didn’t immediately set off warning bell’s like Frank’s hulking muscles did.  Billy was a masterful shot and damn good with a knife (Frank had told him so; Frank had told him so and Billy had all but _purred_ ), but what made him irreplaceably useful was the fact that he could get their team into places without a single shot being fired.  He was the Trojan Horse – no, he was Helen.  Helen with her fine-as-fuck looks and men wrapped around her little finger, waltzing into a fortress with a war at her heels.  Yeah, that was Russo.  He didn’t like to tell Frankie the details – how he did _more_ than smile and bat his eyes, how he sucked cock and put his ass on the line in whatever way would get the job done fastest.  Yeah, Billy was the kind of pretty that cut both ways, and he’d finally gotten used to just using it.  Now, unlike in childhood, when someone used Billy, it was Billy who still won in the end.

Sometimes it was for the mission, but sometimes it was for other things, too.  Sometimes it was to make sure that Billy stayed _useful_ to the higher-ups, when the Machine started to call Billy’s name; sometimes it was when the Machine started calling Frank’s name, and Billy quietly made sure the other man didn’t get dragged away either.  Yeah, ‘pretty’ got shit done, and if the taste of dick on his tongue made Billy feel gross and ugly inside then, well, it wasn’t any different than how he’d been feeling since he was a little boy.  Survival hadn’t changed much since then.  Billy had just gotten more used to using the tools that Mother Nature had given him. And maybe he'd always been ugly and gross on the inside, to give the prettiness something to stick to.

He always had the sense that Frank would look down on him for all that, but it didn’t stop him.  It meant that Billy hid it, of course, which was harder than Billy had expected, because he found that not only was Frank a lot more perceptive than people thought he was (and a lot smarter), but Billy also didn’t actually like keeping things from Frank.  By this point, Billy had told the older man an awful lot about his shitty past, and had learned a lot about Frank’s more rose-colored history in return – a wife, two kids, a safe place waiting for him when he wasn’t on duty.  It made Billy an ugly kind of jealous, but the fact that Frank invited him into that life even after learning how dirty – how ugly – Billy was… it made up for that.  It made Billy swallow the jealousy so that he’d actually met Frank’s wife a few times and had even played nice with her, putting on his friendly mask and playing the ‘good guy’ for all he was worth.  Billy could respect Frank’s home when they were off-duty, because when they were on-duty... Frank was Billy’s home.  Even as the missions started to get to Frank, feeding the darker side of him, bringing out the viciousness that had always been surface-level for Billy, Frank was still Billy’s home.

And then the head of Cerberus got Castle’s wife killed, and everything went to shit.

But even as Frank became a monster to scare monsters, no longer leashed by the goodness of his family, he still felt, smelled, sounded like home to Billy…

~^~

 _God_ , but Billy hurt.  He wanted to rip 007’s guts out for what the man had just done to his leg – but he hated him even more for that last pistol-whip to Billy’s temple.  It had been a lucky blow that Billy had seen coming just a second too late, but now he couldn’t seem to get his body to move.  With a broken leg, he could still fight back, but like this – with his head spinning and refusing to connect with his muscles – he felt helpless.  He was aware that he was lying limply on the ground, able only to clutch at the agonizing pain of his right leg-

Russo’s thoughts were abruptly redirected as he felt a hand in his hair, brutally dragging him into a sitting position.  A twist forced his head to the side, displayed his neck, and Billy couldn’t do anything but snarl in response.

The other Hound, fucking 007, panted from right behind him, “One step closer, Castle, and your partner here won’t be fixable anymore.”

Joke was on him, because Billy hadn’t been ‘fixable’ since his preteen years.  He struggled even as he felt something cold and sharp kiss his neck, growling out viciously, “Don’t listen to him, Frankie-!”  He cut off as James jerked his hair, hard, and then hated himself for being so easily shut up – like a small dog being shaken into submission.  He abruptly felt his temper boil over, and he let go of his leg, even though he logically knew that he needed to keep pressure applied.  He thought he heard Castle bark his name, but Billy wasn’t listening anymore - he was arching his head back to fix dark eyes on startled blue eyes, startled blue eyes that clearly hadn’t expected Russo to be so fast, to get his hands on the knife, too, to state with all the viciousness of a storm in a bottle, “Frankie doesn’t get to make these decisions for me, asshole” and the fight was on.

007 was also stupid if he didn't realize that a Billy was a full-meal-deal of crazy with a side of suicidal, and he'd rather get his neck slashed open than be a hostage against Frank.

~^~

The fight didn't go Billy's way, and hell, maybe he'd never really expected it to.  Billy was used to the world screwing him over like that, and not giving him what he wanted.  

007 was disappearing down the hall.  His footsteps were like rain, and far quieter than they had any right to be.  But Billy had been getting used to that, how all the godforsaken men and women in this place walked quietly, like Death sneaking up on you.  He lay on the ground now and shivered, thinking about that, suddenly scared at the thought of Death sneaking up on him now.  Scared like he hadn't been since he was a child, hearing heavy footsteps stopping outside of his door-

“ _Fuck_ , Billy, are you out of your fucking _mind_?!” Castle’s rasp-and-avalanche voice came from right above him.  Billy got his eyes to slowly focus, giving a few quizzical blinks at the emotions on Frank’s face – because Frank never looked scared, never look worried, but he did now.  He looked angry, too, but Billy was used to that.  Billy made people angry as easily as he breathed; it was a habit, a way of life.  When he tried to close his eyes to ponder that, he was immediately jarred back to reality by a hand clamping over the side of his neck.  Oh yeah, he'd gotten that knife-slash he'd been asking for...  Looked like 007 wasn't half-bad with a blade either.  Billy wondered if Castle would praise him for it...

“No.  No, you do _not_ get to do stupid shit like that and just tap out on me,” Castle snapped.  Billy opened his eyes again, hearing a commanding officer.  Above him, though, Castle looked a bit insane… a bit, Billy flattered himself to think, like when he’d heard his family had died.  Was it messed up to feel flattered by the comparison?  Yes.  But Billy had ‘messed up’ written all over him in indelible ink.  “Put pressure on this,” Castle was ordering, and Billy felt his right hand roughly grabbed and pressed against the side of his neck, where cloth of some kind had appeared.  Frank was missing his jacket now.

Billy winced.  “M’ shoulder hurts,” he complained, but didn’t quite dare to disobey.  Sometimes he disobeyed Frank on purpose, just to make the man mad – because when the man was mad, he forgot his own strength, and that was when Billy got handled like he deserved to be.  Roughly.  He liked it that way, because it was what he knew.  Now, though, didn’t feel like the right time, and Billy had a sneaking suspicion that a bit of roughness just might break him.

“Yeah, well, whine about it,” Castle griped back uncharitably.  Billy opened his mouth to do just that, but then he felt something tightening down around his leg, and that tore a scream past his lips instead.

He didn’t realize that he’d blacked out, and suddenly that was the scariest thing.  Billy’s senses came back online with terror around the edges, an old, animal panic that had been sewn into him when he was twelve and had realized for the first time just what someone could do to you while you were sleeping.  Funny how that fear hadn’t faded away even after decades of time and a good two hundred pounds more of muscle to defend himself with.  Billy was hyperventilating and lashing out almost before his eyes were even open, knowing only that he was missing time that he couldn’t account for, and he was on his back, and things hurt, and-!

“Billy!”

Frank.  Frank was right there, filling up all of his vision and holding his head in both hands like a mother bear cradling a cub in capable paws.  Billy choked on a helpless whimper lodged in his throat, confused and needing Castle to tell him what was going on.  

God, but the man’s eyes were gentle.  He could be as brutal as a force of nature, as a sledgehammer coming down – and sometimes Billy loved that, craved it like masochist needed pain – but sometimes Billy’s weaker side needed _this_.  Billy Russo wasn’t all teeth and armor and masks, although the creature beneath all of that was a small, ruined, feral thing.  It cried when it was left alone.  Sometimes it asked stupid questions like whether it needed to be hurt - if that was what the problem was, that people had _needed_ to hurt him since the day he was born. 

God, Billy’s thoughts weren’t even making sense inside of his own head…  All he could do was pant and whine softly as Frank leaned down to press their foreheads together.  Billy gripped the other man’s wrists, barely noticing the stickiness of blood all over their skin.

“Goddamn, Bill, were you trying to kill him or yourself there?” Frank asked, still holding them close.  Billy felt his fear fade a bit with every warm rush of Frank's breath over his face, even if the pain didn’t – but Billy could handle pain.  It was the oldest friend he had, and arguably the only one that had stuck with him... besides Frank.  So long as Frankie didn't leave him, he'd be okay.

Swallowing thickly, wincing at the pain that lanced across his neck near his collarbones, Billy replied, “You don’t want to know the answer to that, Frankie, so stop asking.”

And Frank was smart enough, for once, to take that advice.  He called Billy a few unflattering names, but he didn’t take a closer peak at the self-destructive demons that called Billy Russo’s skin their home.  Billy, 018, was just a pretty package stuffed full with self-hatred, anger management issues, masochism, and PTSD, and at moments like this, he didn’t know why Frank stayed with him.

But stay he did.  And even as pain made Billy snarl and lash out – because Billy was made to bite the hand that fed him, because that same hand that fed him had struck him every time – Frank just bandaged him up and refused to let Death come near.

~^~

“Don’t ask,” James grunted, glacial blue eyes the first part of him visible in the dimness as he approached Hannibal.  As the rest of 007 materialized, a fresh cut was visible on his left cheekbone, oozing a swipe of red all the way down to his jaw; there was another one on his left hand.

Despite being told not to, Hannibal felt it wise to confirm, “I take it you disposed of your opponents then?  An impressive feat.”

James was clearly not in the mood, as he continued stalking up to his fellow Hound, grunting, “Hardly.  I damaged the pretty bastard enough that Sixteen had a choice between letting me go or letting his buddy bleed out, though.  We’re both lucky that Sixteen has just enough morals to choose the latter.”  By now, Bond had drawn level with Hannibal, and while his expression was only mildly fractious, there was a humming about him that spoke of a considerable amount of controlled violence.  “Now tell me what the hell happened to Q and the others before I decide how many morals _I_ have.”

Usually, Hannibal didn’t appreciate threats.  However, these were trying times, and after that intercom message, definitely special circumstances.  The fact that James wasn’t attacking him out of impotent rage was already a polite gesture.  James was looking down the hallway beyond Hannibal, not meeting his eyes, so Hannibal mimicked his posture, staring off into yellow-tinged darkness.  “You heard C’s little speech, I take it?”

“Yes.”  There was a low, dangerous, animal growl beneath the word.

Hannibal merely nodded acceptance, then went on quite factually, “I was too late.  By the time I arrived, Q and Will were already surrounded by what looked like a posse of the Director-General’s men.  I’m afraid I don’t know where H is.  It seems as though they ran into Shaw.”  Bond swore colorfully under his breath, but not loud enough to truly interrupt Hannibal’s explanation, “Will looks to be the only one who sustained injuries, but to my knowledge, they’re both still alive.  I couldn’t do anything on my own, so I followed them.”

“Waiting for me?”  For the first time, a blue eye cut Hannibal’s way.  It was a measuring look, all made of scalpels.  Hannibal didn’t look away, because he knew that look.

“Ideally.  I trusted that you’d extricate yourself eventually.”

Bond snorted and looked forward again, the smirk on his lips wry even if he didn’t follow up that comment with anything.  His focus was on more important things than the possibility that Hannibal had left him behind to die.  “How many men did C have?”

“I counted nine, including C himself,” Hannibal answered easily, all of the information laid out and waiting in his head.  “I should warn you, of that number, four are fellow agents.”

Bond’s grunt said that wouldn’t be a problem.  “So you know where they are?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Then lead the way,” James said, “We can plan as we go.”

Now it was Hannibal’s turn to accept the other’s words with just a wordless sound of agreement.  He was… _glad_ … that James hadn’t died.  If nothing else, he was glad that he had an ally, because if James hadn’t turned up, he’d have had to find another solution – or another ally.  And Hannibal was beginning to truly appreciate James as a hunting partner, as unexpected a thought as that was.  In the past, he’d tolerated the man, but now that they were turned to the same purpose, it was like temporarily finding a kindred spirit.  They were twinned sharks, cutting the water now with their fins, the same scent of blood leading them.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If more warnings need to be included in my author's note, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I won't be offended (unless you're an asshole about it). I don't want anyone getting triggered by content they weren't properly warned about. This is a dark fic, but as an author, I'm still very dedicated to letting people know what they're getting into. That being said, I enjoy writing Russo and his messed up self entirely too much...


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q's been pretty much side-lined, but that doesn't mean things are slowing down - quite the opposite, as Hannibal and Bond decide that it's time to bring the fight to Moriarty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter jumps a bit, because I've got a few other characters/scenes that I want to check in with. Hopefully on one will find it too disconcerting! This is also a good chapter in which to check back with the [casting pics](https://only1truthfanfiction.wordpress.com/casting-pics/casting-pics-for-sciamachy/), because sometimes I call Hounds by their names and sometimes by their numbers :P And, obviously, I don't expect everyone to know every fandom being tossed about there... although kudos to anyone who is familiar with all of these characters!

Q hadn’t seen Will in a while, and with a gag in his mouth and zipties around his ankles and wrists, he could neither ask about the man nor try to leave the intercom room to go and check on him.  At least he’d thought he’d heard C, in the outer room, give orders not to kill the other hostage – and the door had been left open a crack, allowing Q to listen for any dissent that followed.  There wasn’t any.  A couple of lethal remarks, but Q had been working with Hounds for a while now, enough that he thought the comments were made in jest.  Since then, things had fallen quiet, soft snores breaking the dimness and quiet.

The only other person besides Q in the back room was Eleven – Lorraine was her given name, Q remembered, although her file had denoted so many aliases that it was hard to tell if even this title was real.  In fact, from what Q had heard about her, she’d accepted her number with more grace than most, assimilating into Eigengrau’s system with minimal fuss.  Perhaps it was because, as Eleven, she didn’t have to upkeep any masks.  Case and point being now: after only a glance at the blonde-haired woman, the only way Q could describe her was as effortlessly intimidating.  He knew from reports and photos that she could be charming and even inviting – and she certainly was beautiful – but in Eigengrau, she rarely put in the effort.  Instead, she surveyed the world around her with cold, efficient blue eyes and a body that somehow radiated a dangerous level of readiness even when she was reclined in a chair above him, relaxed.  Q knew that she was capable of emoting.  He’d seen it, actually, when Eleven’s Handler had brought her in for the Smartblood injection.  The Handler (a young woman named Delphine, Q recalled) had been closed off with Q, but both women had relaxed and softened in each other’s presence.  Q would almost dare to say that they meant something to each other, besides simple working partners.

All in all, Eleven continued to remind Q of a female version of James.  There was possibly something real beneath all of the lethal facades.

Right now, Q was sitting uncomfortably on the floor, and watching as Eleven absently stroked a choker necklace that seemed atypical for a woman of her profession.  In Q’s admittedly limited experience with high-Pass agents, he’d noted that they wore very little jewelry, and specifically avoided fashion statements that could be used as handholds or garrotes.

Before Q could ponder where he’d seen that choker before, the door opened, revealing a smiling Agent 012 – if his expression could be termed smiling.  Percival was one of those Hounds whom, in Q’s opinion, simply wasn’t very good at being charming, and usually couldn’t be arsed to care.  Now he was baring his teeth.  “You know, Lorraine, it seems that every time I see you nowadays, you’re babysitting someone,” he said, in a taunting tone that had Q tensing even if Lorraine maintained her usual, unflappable mask.  Percival leaned against the door and went on with more bite in his words, “I wish I’d realized a lot fucking sooner that you were such a _caring soul_.”

Lorraine hadn’t so much as twitched, but she hadn’t looked away from her fellow Hound or even blinked either.  Q began to get the sick suspicion that there was some history between these two that he didn’t know about.  “Go back out to your friends, Percival,” she answered after a pregnant pause.  Her voice was soft like smoke, and came out sounding like a tired sigh.  “I’m sure you’ve found someone out there to play cards with, even in this chaos.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Percival sneered.  There was very real anger in his eyes, however, beneath the smile his mouth was shaping – a rabid, barely contained kind of anger.  Q squirmed, acutely aware of his helplessness at the moment.

Eleven was impenetrable, however.  “I would, actually.”  She still sounded nothing but disinterested, as if social interaction in general exhausted her.

Percival’s smile became more of a snarl.  His eyes flashed.  So far as Hounds went, he was more on the lean side rather than muscular, but Q could see his muscles flex threateningly as he tensed.  For a second, Q expected a fight – but then someone in the other room shouted for Percival.  Something about him taking the next watch.  Clearly angry at being interrupted, Percival shouted back over his shoulder, “But Gerald isn’t even back yet!”

“No, but he should be.  It’s your turn,” someone else maintained.  Percival snarled, stymied.

Before he left, however, he hissed one last thing at Lorraine with contempt and danger dripping off his tone like acid, “Just don’t think you’re going to be able to return that necklace, because there’s no scenario here where your little bitch gets out of here alive.  If you try and save her – or that other little fucker – you won’t get so lucky this time.  All you’ll get is eaten alive right along with them.”  And with that, Percival spun and left, slamming the door behind him so hard that it actually bounced open again, letting in slivers of startled voices and Agent 012 stomping away and cursing loudly.  Twelve was a loud man when he was angry – like a tornado, tearing up the world.

Lorraine hadn’t moved.  Her eyes were still on the door, not meeting Q’s gaze, perhaps on purpose.  She did, after a moment, let out a long, slow, purposeful breath as if she’d been holding it and counting to ten.  It was like watching someone put the safety back on a gun.

‘ _Oh god_ ,’ Q realized, ‘ _if I don’t remember where I’ve seen that choker before, I might die because of an internal feud before Moriarty’s plans for me even get rolling_.’  It actually made him want to break down into manic laughter, because it seemed ludicrous that petty personal squabbles could continue to hold weight when the whole world had gone insane.  Unfortunately, the anger between Eleven and Twelve seemed entirely too real, and Q had read enough of Percival’s records to know that the man was particularly prone to vengeful violence, even by Hound standards.  In fact, Q recalled noticing some preliminary paperwork about ‘retiring’ Percival for being too dangerous to handle – sadly, that report had been penned just in time for Eigengrau to be taken over.

At least Eleven herself wasn’t being actively threatening.  Of course, whenever Q started wriggling or testing his bindings, her stone-cold blue eyes could flick over to him, the dim lighting just barely catching the color of them so that they glinted like an animal’s behind the shadow of her pale-blonde hair.  “If you want me to tighten the restraints, then by all means, keep struggling,” she said blandly at one point, in that sigh-and-smoke voice.  Q, knowing a sincere threat when he heard one, stilled.

Outside the door, he could still hear voices from those who hadn’t gone to sleep yet.  Someone was grumbling that Gerald hadn’t returned yet; someone else added that they’d never liked Gerald anyway; then a voice that sounded distinctly like Seventeen snapped that she was trying to sleep and would gladly eviscerate the next person who spoke.  Quiet fell then, and Q silently gave thanks to whatever higher power had ensured that he wasn’t being guarded by Seventeen.  Hela wasn’t the _most_ unsettling Hound he’d dealt with, but she was damned high on the list.

But then things got a helluva lot more unsettling as loud swearing and cursing rent the air, echoing as if from further away, but getting closer and coalescing into Percival’s furious voice, “Bloody fucking hell, I did not sign up for this!”  When someone understandably asked what he was referring to, the answer was enough to have everyone’s blood run cold: “Hannibal- _fucking_ -Lecter, that’s what!  He’s right behind me, and the reason fucking Gerald didn’t report back is because he’s _dead_.”

Despite Lorraine’s warning to stay still, Q leaned to the side as much as he could, and widened his eyes at the peek he was able to get through the crack in the door: Percival, chest heaving and eyes wild, blood smeared all down his chest from what looked like a wicked slash at the level of his collarbones.  It looked like he’d narrowly escaped getting his throat cut, and even though Q had previously been allied with Hannibal, he found fear rise up to choke him.

Lorraine leapt up and slammed the door shut, locking it, before Q could see anything more.  When he looked at her and made a confused noise past the gag, she merely looked down on him, and raised one eyebrow to the smallest degree.  “Unless you want that spilling into here?” he asked.

Even if Q hadn’t been gagged, it would have been a rhetorical question.  Even as Q leaned away and shook his head, more shouting and chaos echoed from the room beyond.

~^~

Hannibal had forgotten how hard to kill other Hounds were.  He was sure that he’d had Twelve dead to rights, but the Hound had heard him coming in time to spin around and jump back.  In all frankness, Hannibal found Twelve to be one of the more insufferable agents in Eigengrau, but he made a mental note not to underestimate his reflexes from here on out.  However, it still served the purpose.  Hannibal gave Twelve a head-start, watching as the lean Hound ran.

A shadow detached from the deeper shadows behind Hannibal, ice-blue eyes glinting.  “You know what to do?” James asked, very quietly.

Taking a brief moment to wipe his knife clean on the shirt of the other man he’d killed minutes ago, Hannibal then straightened with a predatory smile.  “I think our plan is simple enough that I can manage it,” he replied with dark cheer.

Then Hannibal began stalking forward, going from a purposeful walk to a ground-eating run in seconds, the smile on his face never fading.

~^~

Harold felt like he’d been going around in circles for entire lifetimes, but in reality he was struggling to keep track of both direction and time, now that he’d been turned around in this seemingly windowless labyrinth.  It was something of a miracle, therefore, when he found himself in front of a door that actually looked familiar – and which led into Q-branch.  Clutching Q’s bag tighter to himself, H leaned against the doorframe before entering, trying to catch his breath.  He also tried (and failed) to rid himself of those last images of Q, Shaw, and Will.  Or… whatever it was that Will had become.  H had worked in Eigengrau for long enough to know just what sort of monsters society could produce, and despite that, he had been unprepared for Will’s sudden psychopathy.  Even now it made no sense.  Sure, H hadn’t known Will for very long, but it had been like watching a switch being flipped, a seemingly quiet man turning into a maniacal religious zealot.

And H had just left the others to deal with that.

“Harold,” he muttered to himself, feelings of self-loathing threatening to engulf him, “you are such a gutless coward.”  Perhaps that was why he was still keeping Q’s bag safe, feeling as protective of it as he would have a child – because that was some small way for him to make up for his leaving.  It hadn’t even occurred to H until this point to question what was _in_ the Quartermaster’s bag-

H’s thoughts ground to a halt, as he fixated on the small window flanking the door to Q-branch.  It was reinforced, and not a particularly clear window, but through it he had seen movement.  Equal parts curious and fearful, Harold limped a bit closer, his bad leg giving a mighty protest at being moved.  Still, the damaged limb had held out this long; it could last a few more steps, as H sidled close enough to peer through the window.

There seemed to be two people moving around some sort of machine, in the middle of Q-branch.  The lighting was as terrible here as anywhere else, and it was across the room from this particular doorway, but if he pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted, H could make out features.  The woman wasn’t instantly familiar, but she had no collar on, which was honestly enough to make Harold go weak-kneed with relief.  He didn’t think the man had a Hound’s collar on either, but it also looked like…  The man was bald.  And Harold knew that hawk-like profile anywhere.

Before Harold could cry out in pure elation at recognizing Merlin, a fellow Q-brancher, and push his way into Q-branch, a hand appeared out of nowhere and covered his mouth and nose.  Another arm locked around his middle, dragging him away from the door.

~^~

The fact that Harry’s mobile was still working indicated that Merlin and Roxy hadn’t reprogrammed the signal-jammer yet.  Harry appreciated the extra time, because he had the sense that this move would level the playing field, yes, but would likely also make the enemy more desperate.  And according to Eggsy’s texts, that could end badly, since the boy was presently outnumbered by Hounds in Hanger C.

Still trying to keep his texts to a minimum, just in case the phone should fall into the wrong hands, Harry had nonetheless asked Eggsy questions regarding just which high-Pass agents they were dealing with – and Eggsy had answered with alacrity, and surprising acuity, too.  It had taken very little time for Harry to recognize Harkness and Arthur.  Knowledge was power, but this knowledge didn’t really settle Harry much, because while Arthur was relatively young and new to Eigengrau, Harkness was well-versed in violence, and would be a dangerous foe.  Hearing that Moran had left was a stroke of good luck, though.  Harry was also rather gratified by how transparently happy Eggsy seemed (even through texts) at Harry’s imminent arrival.

If they could all time this correctly, then soon Harry and Eggsy would be in control of the only way off the island, and C wouldn’t even know that a coup had occurred while his back was turned.  Unfortunately, that relied on so many little moving parts: the signal jammer, which had to be activated before Harry and Eggsy joined forces to attack the hanger, but not so early that C realized something was wrong and ran back to check on his escape route; Harry himself, who had to avoid other skirmishes and trouble along the way if he was to arrive at all; and Eggsy, who was clearly a brave lad, and possibly too stubborn for his own good, but who was ultimately very vulnerable to the kind of violence that a Hound could unleash.

Harry didn’t realize how much that last thought worried him until he found himself taking the phone out to text as he jogged: ~ _Status?~_

The reply was slow in coming, and Harry swore he aged a whole year as he waited.  Had the signal jammer come on?  It looked like his message had sent…

  The little mobile buzzed with a return message a moment later: ~ _No dif.  Still six against one if I have to start this party without you :P_ ~

“Cheeky little shit,” Harry chuckled to himself.  ~ _Start trouble before I arrive and I’ll put you over my knee._ ~

The text had been impulsive, but the response was unexpected: ~ _Promise? ;)_ ~

Good god, this boy really was going to be the death of him…  Deciding that he’d run into something if he kept texting while running, Harry shoved the mobile into his pocket and focused on the simple, physical task of moving.  Moving was good.  So was focus.  Because if Harry got jumped by a random villain because he was distracted by a text, he’d never live it down…  Dying with a hard-on would also be very, very embarrassing and in no way fulfilling.

~^~

It sounded like a warzone outside their door.  Q hadn’t been paying as much attention to the layout as he should have, when he’d been dragged into the intercom room, but it sounded like there were too many people and too few places to hide.  Some tried to hide where Q and Eleven were, but the lock held them off until they realized that they couldn’t afford to turn their back on Hannibal Lecter.  Nonetheless, Lorraine stood, gun out and facing the door, although Q had to wonder who she intended on shooting if they came through – just Hannibal, or allies, too?  She looked coldly determined to shoot just about anyone, and Q thought back to what Percival had said to her, about saving someone (maybe two someones).  Q had the sinking suspicion that those people Lorraine cared enough to save were not amidst the group right outside that door.

There were gunshots, but they were growing more sporadic – ammo was running out.  And from the sounds of things, most of those bullets had been wasted, because there was no sound of anyone cheering on Lecter’s death.  Quite the contrary.  There was in fact enough screaming to indicate that the man was very close, although no matter how Q strained his ears, he couldn’t hear Hannibal himself… which somehow made the entire scenario even more unsettling.  Q tried to imagine it: the darkened hallways, more shadow than yellowed light, birthing forth a silent shadow that walked in lockstep with Death, unhesitant, unrepentant.  Q flinched back against one of the room’s chairs as something heavy hit the door, releasing a hideous scream.  For a while, Q had thought that he could hear Moriarty and Moran trying to maintain order, but it sounded like they’d given up on that.

For there was no order in Hell.

~^~

There actually was a kind of order, but that didn’t make the situation any less hellish.  Hannibal smirked past bloodied lips as he managed to pierce through the bulk of C’s forces, letting them slip past him like fish through a ragged net, knowing that James was waiting for exactly that.  They were the twin jaws of a trap, and while Hannibal had gotten the bloodier end of the job, the reward was worth it: he was pretty sure that Q was just beyond that door, and more importantly, when the last person had ‘escaped’ Hannibal and fled the room, they’d left behind something.  “Will,” Hannibal murmured, dropping down onto his haunches and brushing his fingers against a curl of black hair.  Like Hannibal’s hands, Will’s hair was sticky with blood.  Something dark and vicious twisted inside Hannibal as he began to wonder who had injured Will so.  “Will, it’s time to wake up.”

Killing was something that Hannibal did naturally, and there were bodies behind him now, but his high-Pass counterparts were hard to kill – and as soon as they realized that another vengeful monster blocked their exit, they’d get desperate, and double back to where Hannibal was.  Theoretically, Hannibal was supposed to use that time to find Q, but right now other ideas were bubbling in his mind.  When the survivors retreated into Hannibal’s hands again, he wanted an ally.  

Will was unconscious, but his eyes were flickering beneath his lids.  Hannibal’s smile grew sad and warm all at the same time, and he threaded his fingers into sticky, stained ringlets to tilt Will’s face up towards his.  “Come on, Will.  You can’t hide from the beast forever,” he coaxed gently, his other hand reversing its grip on the knife Hannibal had chosen to wield.  He reached around to slip it into Will’s bindings.  “Sometimes you have to free monsters in order to become free yourself,” he opined, even as the sounds of chaos and horror renewed themselves behind him – James had come into play, with all the fury that Hannibal had expected.  Soon, the survivors of 007’s wrath would come pelting back, and Hannibal would be cornered.  He found it hard to be bothered by this fact, however, as he heard Will groan and saw him grimace, drawing closer to consciousness.  “That’s it,” Hannibal crooned with growing excitement.  Will’s limbs came free, and that seemed to trigger more wakefulness.  Will frowned in distress and whimpered.  Hannibal shushed him gently, speaking a few words in his native tongue and feeling something warm blossom in his chest as Will quieted again.

But Hannibal didn’t want Will to be quiet; he needed him to be alive and whole and _howling_.  So Hannibal put down his knife so that he could grip Will’s head in both hands, leaning down so that they were almost nose to nose, and he could feel his breath ricocheting back off Will’s face as he commanded, “Wake up, Will!”

Olive-green eyes snapped open.  Dazed, disoriented, they were clearly seeking something to grab onto – and, lo and behold, there was Hannibal to offer exactly that, with his calm eyes, soft smile, and predatory soul.  “You’re in danger,” he informed the younger man calmly, maintaining his grip even as Will thrashed a little, like someone jerked out of a coma by a shot of adrenaline to the heart.  Clammy hands clamped down on Hannibal’s wrists, but Will’s eyes never strayed far from his – except to stare at Hannibal’s mouth as the older man continued, “You’re in danger, but I know how to make you safe.  Show me your fangs, Will.”

Those eyes snapped back up to Hannibal’s, some of the disorientation fading to horror.  “No…” he gasped raggedly.  But his struggles were still weak, and Hannibal’s grip was strong. He’d also caught Will at his least guarded, an unfair move that left Hannibal feeling a little bit guilty – but with the sounds of dangers drawing closer, he pushed that guilt aside.

“Fight your true nature and you’ll die, Will.  We both will.  Use your nature to fight your enemies-”

Will bared his teeth before Hannibal could finished, biting out, “And I’ll probably kill you, too.”  He was trying harder to wriggle free of Hannibal’s grip, but his struggles were notably less than what they could have been.  There was no clawing or punching, no kicking or screaming.  Will was squeezing bruisingly tight on Hannibal’s wrists, but otherwise didn’t seem to be trying as hard as he could’ve to get out from the agent’s looming shadow.

“Is that what you fear?  Hurting me?” Hannibal asked, even as another scream pierced the air – from nearer than before.  It wasn’t clear who it came from, but Hannibal had failed to kill at least C, Moran, and two of the Hounds.  All dangerous.  All possibly drawing closer while Hannibal gently coaxed a wolf out of hiding.  He heard the door nearest to him, the one he suspected Q of being behind, unlock but not open.  One ear metaphorically cocked towards the sound, Hannibal gave Will’s face a soothing stroke even as he watched the expression of torment that twisted it.  “Will, I would take pain from you as a benediction.”  Will still wasn’t convinced, and Hannibal sighed as the younger man tightly closed his eyes and tried to shake his head in denial.  “If you cannot trust yourself, trust me, then.  Your inner demons are hardly the first that I have encountered.  Besides…”  He gave the blood-streaked cheek another stroke, and this time Will seemed to really register it, eyes opening again and mouth tipping into a bemused frown.  Hannibal smiled in return, and pulled Will closer.  By now, the younger man was nearly sitting, Hannibal crouched above his lap, touching him with the care one might show a baby bird.  Hannibal’s fond smile didn’t fade as he stated the brutal facts, “…The men and women about to rush this room are hardly saints.  Is it not your task to punish the wicked?”

At first, Will’s face creased in confusion.  Then Hannibal’s words – as he’d hoped they would – triggered something in Will’s damaged skull.  “Punish… the wicked…” he repeated, and Will began to hear the voice that he’d heard screeching in the hallway before Hannibal could get to him.  Olive-green eyes began to haze over, as Hannibal watched in fascination as something else – some _one_ else – began to overtake them.

Will was probably concussed, Hannibal realized.

Making this almost too easy.

So he pressed it a step further.

“Listen to the sound of my voice, Will…  Focus on _me_ …”  Something in Hannibal’s soul roared with triumph and pride as he watched Will’s eyes snap to him again, and this time seem to reach into his very core.  Deep down, Hannibal had always wanted to be caught, but only so that he could be understood.  Now, he was watching as Will’s strange and awesome gift began to understand him on a level that no human being ever could.

~^~

Generally speaking, there were two types of Hounds that worked in Eigengrau: those with egregious anger-management issues, and those who barely had any emotions at all.  Russo and Castle were examples of the former, their tempers being legendary, even feeding off one another until James found it hard to understand why they hadn’t killed each other yet.  Usually, though, James was one of the latter.  He didn’t get angry often, and when he did, it was a deeply buried, smoldering anger, and had been told more times than he could count that he was a cold bastard.  It made him good at what he did.  While wearing Eigengrau’s collar, James had done many atrocious things, but his ‘emotional insufficiencies’ (their words, not his) allowed him to detach from those situations and keep surviving.

Now, though…  Now, James was furious.  It felt like he’d swallowed a bonfire, the heat of it rising up to nearly choke him, and he could feel how it was searing out a lot of his common sense along the way.  And he didn’t fucking care, because from the moment he’d heard Q cry out over that intercom, James had wanted to tear C apart with his bare hands.  That was why he’d suggested this plan.  He hadn’t just wanted to chase C and his men away like jackals from their prey – no, James wanted to close in around them like a snare, and teach them what it really meant to feel fear.

When you took an agent who cared about fewer people in this world than he had fingers on one hand, and then threatened one of those people… well, you didn’t get a chance to make that mistake twice.

Hannibal had already begun the process, leaving two corpses for James to pass by, although that left many of the living still to deal with.  Hannibal’s job had been to act as the stiletto blade, stabbing right through everything to reach and secure Q and Will.  James was the battleaxe coming in behind, which meant sowing a helluva lot more destruction but also meeting more resistance.

Case and point: now, as he faced off against Agent 017.  He just barely dodged the bullet she sent winging his way, but before he could calculate whether it was her last bullet or not, she tossed the weapon aside and charged him, doing more damage that way than she had with a projectile weapon.  Though James was the heavier of the two, Hela’s speed sent him crashing into a desk, the pain of impact radiating up his spine.  She was a fairly recent addition to Eigengrau, and James hadn’t had a lot of experience with her, but was now making a note of her ferocity.  James’ own gun – also low on ammo – became suddenly useless in close quarters, and he snarled as one of the female Hound’s hands latched onto his gun-arm, pushing it back, while Hela’s other hand found his throat and squeezed.  Her fingernails felt like claws against his throat, and he actually felt something hot trickle down his neck before he even managed to produce a knife in his free hand.  She backed off sharply then, avoiding a cut that would have gutted her, but releasing a sound that sounded like a cross between a snarl and a chuckle.

James was about to bring his gun to bear again when he heard a mad, cackling laugh ahead that could only come from C.  Despite himself, James felt his attention straying in that direction.  Hela noticed, but instead of pressing the attack, her eyes narrowed cannily and she darted off in the other direction instead.  With her dark hair and eyeshadow, and clothing to match, she disappeared into the darkness like any good predator.  Hers was a smart kind of bloodlust, James decided, touching his neck and swearing as he felt small smears of blood.  When she’d been leaned up against him with a momentary advantage, he’d seen in her eyes that she would’ve been totally okay with ripping his throat out with her bare hands – but she was ultimately more interested in keeping her own skin intact.  She wasn’t the only one either; another Hound had managed to slip past both James and Hannibal, albeit with more injuries.  Sometimes you had to pay the Ferryman to get to the other side, and the cost could be steep…

But because James had priorities, he paused only long enough to be sure that Seventeen wasn’t planning to double back and surprise him, then moved forward.  Killing every man and woman who had taken Q was a mighty tempting prospect, but realistically, James knew that he’d be happy if he could just put that bastard C in the ground.

Anticipation like a monster in his veins, James skidded to a halt and actually growled as he turned a corner, spotting the very man he wanted so badly to maim.

The problem was, C wasn’t alone.  From everything James had seen and heard of the Director-General, he was not a fighting man – even the smallest Hound had a body that showed more muscle than C did, and nothing had indicated that C had hidden fighting skills.  Unfortunately, he did seem to have at least one ally who wasn’t as interested in cutting and running as Hounds like Hela were.  Now, James only caught a glimpse of the Director-General, because a tall, leanly muscled man was standing in front of him.  Whereas C was actually still grinning maniacally, his guard had eyes as cold and detached as a reptiles, which is what made James take the gun in his hands more seriously – said gun was also pointing at none other than Will Graham.  Hannibal was also in evidence, standing very still, but a few paces away and to one side.

Oddly enough, though, neither Will nor Hannibal seemed particularly panicked.  In fact, they were both eyeing the situation in general (and the gun in particular) with heads tilted at nearly identical angles of curiosity.

Something about the situation had James’ hair standing on end, and he prowled closer more carefully.  He was still noticed, as he stepped out of the shadows and into the room (a fairly open area, with two exits besides the one he’d entered, and a few desks), and C called like a deranged songbird, “Why, Moran, would you look at who’s here!”

The guard, Moran, cut his eyes James’ way, his gun never wavering even as he took note of everything about James in a cool sweep of his eyes.  Ah.  He was well-trained then.  And since Hannibal was presently armed only with a very bloody knife and a cool little smile, Moran had now identified James as the man to watch.  Chances were high that Moran would pull the trigger before James could, ensuring that Will would die even if Moran would be swift to follow.  Of course, that wasn’t an entirely unacceptable order of events for James.  After all, Will Graham meant very little to him.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Hannibal, who hummed quietly and then spoke as if reading Bond’s mind, “Go to Q, James.  Don’t force me to kill you out of vengeance.”

While C cooed something that sounded like “Oooh, complicated!” and Moran’s expression flicked between confusion and irritation, James spared a glance towards Hannibal.

“I believe you also owe me a debt,” Hannibal mouthed, expression steady but stance ready.  James felt his gut twist in remembrance.  He did indeed owe Hannibal… and even if James were to discard that debt, he didn’t like to think what Hannibal Lecter would do once crossed.  He’d threatened to kill James already, but Hannibal was known for being creative with his grudges.  When he paid a person back for damages, he did so _with interest._  And he’d most certainly drag Q into it, kicking and screaming.

Will spoke next, and his voice was eerie to listen to.  The dark-haired man hadn’t exactly interacted with James much, but he nonetheless seemed a bit… off… right now.  His tone seemed calm and maybe a bit amused – but with an easy undercurrent of threat to it, like sharks beneath a steady sea.  He sounded, if James were being honest, a bit like Hannibal.  “We all know what you’re truly interested in, Bond.”  Will’s eyes remained focused on Moran and his gun.  When he shifted his weight, it seemed to be a matter of getting comfortable rather than being nervous.  “The intercom room is behind the door on the left.”

“It has opened and closed since we’ve been here, just a crack,” Hannibal went on.

“But I should warn you, we haven’t spotted Eleven,” Will said next.  It was like one person talking out of two bodies.

Hannibal finished it off by adding almost off-handedly, “I heard her while I was hunting, but haven’t seen her since.”  He shrugged.  His eyes had shifted back to Moran now, something supremely lethal slipping into his gaze, a clear deterrent should Moran decide to start shooting while they conversed.  It seemed to be working.  “Perhaps she slipped past me, but I doubt you’ve seen her either.”

James hadn’t, which suddenly made his worry for Q spike almost painfully.  Suddenly, the desire to rip C limb from limb had been relegated to the back of his head,

C was hissing something into Moran’s ear, almost slipping out from behind him.  Moran’s expression showed a bit more emotion now – frustration – as he snarled at the smaller man to shut up and get back.  C obeyed with an audible noise of displeasure, ruining James’ hopes of getting a clear shot at the real target that he wanted.  Instead, James sighed, realizing that he’d been backed into a corner in much the same way that C and Moran had.  He paced slowly into the room, but instead of getting closer, he made his way to Hannibal.  Eyes never leaving Moran’s, he said quietly to the other Hound, “How’s your aim?”

“Good enough to even the odds, in a room this small,” was Hannibal’s pleasant, smooth reply.  He had blood all over his face, and James wasn’t sure if it was from a bloody nose or if the man had bitten someone.

As James began to carefully hand his gun over, it was clear that Moran imagined an opening – but then Will spoke up.  He couldn’t have seen what was happening between Hannibal and James, yet he seemed to have deduced that a hand-off of weapons was taking place, even as he spoke to Moran, “Think of me as a hostage.  Once I’m just another body on the floor, you lose that advantage.”  Despite the fact that it was his life on the line, Will’s dark head tilted.  For the first time, James noticed the blood all over him, and the makeshift bandage on his head.  “What do you prefer?  A stand-off or a shoot-out?”

By C’s insidious little whispers, he clearly favored the chaos of the latter, but luckily, Moran was made of more stable, logical stuff.  His mouth pursed into a thin line, and while something hot burned behind his watchful eyes, he didn’t pull the trigger even as James relinquished his weapon and Hannibal took a second to fit it into his own grip.  James took the bloody knife, adding it to his own.

“You can handle this?” he asked, still torn.  There was something deeply wrong about this situation, but the problem was, he didn’t think that it had anything to do with the gun pointed at Will.  If anything, the danger to Will seemed to be regarded as a trivial matter at the moment, even if Hannibal still clearly valued his companion like a dragon valued gold.

“Oh, I think we’ll be just fine,” Hannibal reassured.  His words were spoken idly – his widening grin gave him away, though, with his canines glinting past a sheen of red.  A monster winking.  “Go and find your wayward _brangusis_.”

James didn’t know the language Hannibal was speaking, and for a moment he narrowed his eyes, tempted to ask.   Then he realized that he couldn’t afford to waste any more time, especially if the missing Eleven was anywhere in the vicinity of the also-absent Q.  Without another word, James turned towards the door on the left.

C, of course, had to get in a parting word.  He shouted past his bodyguard’s obstinate shoulder, “You should be excited, James!  You wanted to take something pure and corrupt it, didn’t you?”  James nearly missed a step, startled, but forced himself to keep moving without reacting.  He didn’t have time for this.  He couldn’t cover his ears, though, and apparently Moran couldn’t shut C up anymore.  “Well, today’s your _lucky_ day, because your good boy has a dark side!” C’s voice rose in volume until he was shrieking, “And now he fucking _knows it_!”

James just kept walking, twirling the new knife in his left hand to get used to the balance.  If he frowned, it was only because blood had made the weapon slippery in his grip.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Brangusis_ = Darling (Lithuanian)  <\-- apologies if I misused this, as I'm not a native speaker
> 
> Ahhhh, poor James, doesn't even realize he just talked to two different Hannibals at once... He just didn't recognize the killer from behind Will's eyes. And you _know_ Q heard Moriarty's last comment.
> 
> *claps hands together* Well, now that I've got Moriarty and Moran cornered, things should be simple, right? *blinks innocent eyes* Let's see what chaos I have left in these typing hands of mine... especially since Hela (and at least one other Hound from Moriarty's group) is still alive and kicking... ;)

**Author's Note:**

> As of right now, this fic is 15 chapters long, 88 000 words, and still growing - I'll be posting rapidly, however, because during the summer, it turns out, I can write as much as 5,000 words a day *flops over in a heap* The goal is to have this entire fic finished by the end of July, for those of you who are understandably wary of WIPs.
> 
> Because of this rapid writing schedule, I have to choose between writing and replying to comments - I sadly cannot do both :( But please know that all of your comments are deeply cherished and appreciated by me, even if I don't get time to reply and say so! Also, many thanks to my lovely team of betas: Springbok7, MinMu, DoraTLG, Dassandre, as well as Isabella and even my roommate Chris. Without this, you'd be reading more grammar/spelling errors than story...


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